


Strength of the Dragon Prince

by EonRunner



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alienated - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst and Feels, Callum's elf family?, Cultural Differences, Death, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Magic Made Them Do It, Mutual Pining, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Racism, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:02:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24818815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EonRunner/pseuds/EonRunner
Summary: Callum comes from a more modern world and due to a surge in magical energy, he is removed from his life in that world and brought to the world of Xadia. Callum will live his life through the impending racial problems that come from him being the only human in a world full of Elves. In this world and in his own he has nothing,  Callum's only chance will be to learn to fight so he may survive..by any means possible. Rayla is a common Moonshadow Elf who knows her way around a fight, but she's currently in a time in elven life where war is long since forgotten. The world is going to change for the worst...will they be ready for it?
Relationships: Callum & Ezran (The Dragon Prince), Callum & Soren (The Dragon Prince), Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince), Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince), Lain/Tiadrin (The Dragon Prince), Rayllum - Relationship
Comments: 86
Kudos: 139





	1. Death Begets Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is so much colder than I last remember…the way the wind that used to blow beautiful scents into my nose, now only blew the scent of fire and death.  
> The more I want to remember it the hazier the memories become, the thoughts of my family enjoying a lovely picnic celebrating my twenty-first birthday…then quickly becoming filled with flames and screams.

# Chapter 1: Death Begets Death

Callum:

_The world is so much colder than I last remember…the way the wind that used to blow beautiful scents into my nose, now only blew the scent of fire and death._

_The more I want to remember it the hazier the memories become, the thoughts of my family enjoying a lovely picnic celebrating my twenty-first birthday…then quickly becoming filled with flames and screams._

_I want to breath, I want to see where I am at, but my body disregards that idea as if it wants to hide me away from this crumbling world._

_The last visible thought I can remember is a thunder cloud approaching and striking near my family…my mom and dad were yelling at me to do something._

_I can imagine it was to run, but instead I stood and blindly stared at the clouds as a bolt struck me…_

_That must be it! I am dead and this is the afterlife and I am simply looking back on my life for what I have done._

_I want to see my mom and dad once more; I want to tell them I am sorry…I want to hold them one last time…_

_And in that instance, my entire subconscious was snubbed out and I lost myself and succumbed to the darkness._

Rayla:

Another monotonous day in the city of Silver groove, and another monotonous day watching the Moonshadow Queen and King’s Royal Kingdom on the first day of fall.

I should be going about indulging in the woods as the seasons change and hang out with my friends…but instead I offered to help Serah by watching over her post for the day.

Serah was a strong, passionate MoonShadow elf but she was too worried about her boyfriend to be responsible in her duties as royal guard.

Luckily, I ended up being posted far away from any patrols that would get the chance to identify me as a random bystander.

Rayla looked at her flimsy spear and laughed while she reached a hand behind her to feel her dual blades forged by her uncle’s lover Ethari.

If Rayla had to fight with a spear she would fall in an instance, but when she had her trusty swords on her she felt like she could spar the Queen herself…

A small chuckle arose as she dismissed that thought because she knew that the Elven Queen of all the nations had the strongest battle prowess in the entire clan.

Rayla started to playfully swing around the spear as if she were fighting actual invaders.

In all honesty, the thought of an actual war was extremely far-fetched to Rayla as she and several generations before her lived in peaceful quiet.

Aside from the usual monster in the woods, Rayla’s battle prowess was quite lack luster, but far better than 90% of her entire clan…put together.

Rayla always playfully thought about ‘maybe she was born in the wrong time’ and truly wondered what it would have been like to be apart of a never-ending war state.

Scary for sure, but those elves became war heroes that elves remembered for several generations and even more so after them.

Rayla was always exceptional when it came to physical strength and dexterity, but that kind of advantage come in handy as much as its worth to be a War troll trying to bake pastries.

The fact Rayla had to second guess why she even made that comparison made her pout her lips in disappointment.

War trolls cannot bake because they only know how to kill…and their hands are as big as furnace to begin with…

Rayla looked out over towards the orange colored treetops and the brownish colors of the trunks and wished painfully to be doing something, anything if it was possible.

She remembers the days she was a young elf and walked around her clanmates and beat up all the other kids who were way bigger than her.

Rayla was born to fight for something and she knew that the moment she picked up anything she could fasten as a weapon.

She just really wishes she knew what…

Callum:

“You’ve been wronged at every moment in your life, haven’t you?”

Callum could hear the voice but not post a face to it, the darkness was too much for him as he could not even feel his own body among it.

“You were chastised because you were different, hurt because you’re unique.”

The same voice was becoming louder in Callum’s head as he tried to cover his ears with his hands, but to no avail, his hands gone as well.

“I put you in that world to protect you from the dangers of him, but he found you anyway.”

Callum’s confusion become pure agitation as he started to retaliate against the spectral voice.

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!”

For a moment, nothing, just endless darkness and the sound of Callum’s words echoing through it like he was in a large room.

“This time I have learned, you will be plunged into darkness…”

Callum jolted at the thought of that, he started to feign concern as he was afraid this voice was going to harm him.

“I don’t understand, please don’t hurt me, I just want to know what you want?”

“You will be plunged into darkness so that you will emerge with the light of hope and defeat him.”

The words lingered against Callum’s ears as he thought to who the voice was referring to only to come up blank.

“Who are you talking about? Please I need to know, so I’m not left in the dark?”

The darkness started piercing his body as if he were about to be crushed under its weight. The room still pitch black, but Callum started to gasp for air as he felt his body becoming crippled by a force he could not see. If only for a moment, Callum could feel is eyelids as he blinked rapidly trying to take in his surroundings.

Callum hated the idea of dying…again no less. With the bit of strength, he had left he tried to move his formless body to give himself a chance to regain himself.

Then he just felt nothing, from nothing to something…

Callum opened his eyes and saw a cave, littered with bones and giant crevices filled with illuminating green liquid. The cave was massive in size as it loomed over Callum, but the most interesting thing that caught his eyes was the hulking creature sleeping in the middle of the room surrounded by the green aura.

Then he heard the voice speak to him again, shattering his ears as the cave erupted to life along with the creature.

“YOU MUST DEFEAT LAGARIUS! THE DRAGON OF THE VOID”

All Callum could see was the creature uncoil himself and look over to Callum, and his entire body rattled the ground as he looked over to Callum.

The dragon’s body was bones that were worn down through the ages, but the mysterious green liquid started to fill up his body and created the scales and parts of his body that were not bones.

Callum’s only idea was to turn and run but he could not move, all he could do was to watch the dragon peer into his soul and open his mouth ready to devour him.

The dragon’s only words were shouted to the point magma started to break into the cave from the walls of the cave.

“YOU!!!!”

The dragon reared up on its legs and raised one of its arms and slashed it down towards Callum with quickness that he honestly could not believe he saw with his own eyes.

The arm finally made impact with Callum and the world went dark yet again.

The only thing he could make out was that his new location was soft, and sharp. A branch snapped on his arm and he felt pain, which elected him to open his eyes. Callum shot up onto his elbows to support his weight as he looked around to view his surroundings.

He was in a forest; the tress was incredibly tall as they towered over him like the buildings back home did. The leaves were orange turning brown but giving off a serene smell that made Callum’s nerves calm down instantly. The birds about were chirping and animals were frolicking around him almost making Callum feel like he was back home.

Those thoughts were dashed as a strange squirrel with three tails and a pattern that reminded him of the stars in the night sky.

Callum laid back down to just take in what is going on right now. All those horrible thoughts and feelings he felt in the past moments frightened him more than anything.

And as he closed his eyes, he felt himself grow a little confidence, and tell himself.

“I will not go back to that darkness again.”

Rayla:

“Oh, how the time doesn’t fly by!” Rayla’s anger rearing itself in her voice as she looks to the sky to see its only mid-day and she was only stuck here for a little while longer.

The thoughts of strangling her friend Serah and maybe her irresponsible boyfriend would make Rayla’s day infinitely better. She decided to dismiss those ideas as she continued watching a single view of the woods for an immeasurable amount of time.

Every what if gave Rayla a desire to just leave her post or just move around a bit as just standing still in one spot for her whole day was the least enjoyable thing in her life. That was until she noticed the tress from her post shuffled revealing flocks of birds flying away…from something.

Rayla took it upon herself to venture out and see what going on around here, disturbing her personal time to rethink her friendship with Serah.

The first couple of thoughts was simply just a banther or a tree spirit walking around knocking into the tress disturbing the critters.

And it was not that long into her journey before she came up to a small clearing revealing someone…or something laying in the middle of the grass relaxing without a care in the world.

At first Rayla was curious to who it was, but she decided to call it a what after seeing it was wearing some extremely peculiar clothing.

She became so perplexed at seeing his pants having several pockets lining each side, and this piqued her interested to see what he had in there? Weapons? Or a bunch of food?

Rayla inched forward to get a better look but ended up stepping on a branch, snapping into two and send the whole forest into panic mode.

The next thing she knew she was looking face to face with this visitor and…he did not have pointed ears or runic markings on his face…

They both just stared into each other eyes waiting for one to move.

Rayla noticed that the creature had similar features, but he was not an elf. The way his chest-nut brown hair draped over his forehead and his emerald green eyes pierced her very soul.

For whatever he is, he’s kind of cute…wait wait no…why did that pop into my head, he is not cute he’s…something that I’m not sure I want to understand right now.

Both the figures stared longer and longer trying to gauge more reactions, but they stood there for what seemed like an eternity, and then some more added on.

Rayla broke the silence and drew her spear forward and pointed it at the creature, hoping to at least scare it away so she would not have to keep thinking millions of ways to get rid of him.

She looked at his eyes and saw no fear in them, only sadness.

Rayla lowered her spear and saw as the creature walked over to her and grabbed the spearhead.

All she could think about in those moments was to swipe at him maybe hit him to show that she was dangerous and maybe clue him in.

Her mind was racing as she wanted to not hurt him, but the all she could see in his eyes was sadness. The more she looked into his eyes, the more she wanted to know what made him this way.

Rayla attempted to open her mouth to say something just to see the creature pull the spear towards his throat and watch as his blood trickled down spearhead.

The only thing she heard him say while looking into her eyes was…

“My strength was that I got the chance to live…even for a while.”

And in that instance, the creature impaled himself on the spear and Rayla watched his blood stain the forest as he fell onto the ground limp.

Rayla watched in horror at what just happened and threw her spear to the side and kneeled down to the creature and grabbed his body and lifted his head to watch his eyes flicker back and forth between her and the ground.

Rayla grabbed plant from her back pocket and placed it on the creature’s neck where to wound was and held her hands together and said, “Moon tears”.

The plant started glowing as it started budding and the juices of the fruit spilled out onto the wound which started to glow a teal green.

The plant withered and fell into the grass next to the two and sunk into the earth, just to have it appear out the ground in the state it was before the spell.

Rayla watched as the creature was laying lifeless as the spell was quickly repairing the wound of the spear entering his neck.

“Come on please work, you don’t need to die here!” Rayla started shouting in attempt the creature would hear her pleas.

She held his neck in place as the magic finally dissipated and the body of the once harmed individual started to breathe again.

Rayla slowly lowered the body and gave an exasperated sigh of relieve as she just saved herself and this visitor.

“Now I have to wait till he wakes up…then ill get my answers.” Rayla’s face full of determination rather than the dread she was filled with moments ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a different attempt at a cooler fanfic that ive wanted to do, but i was too hesitant because of my other fanfiction in the works. Screw it though, whatever time i have on my hands, ill pour it into making my kids happy together.
> 
> GAME START


	2. A Welcoming Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Callum is awake and he needs answers, so does Rayla. Can Callum keep his composure in front of a weapon yet again or will he find a safe haven?

# Chapter 2: A Welcoming Shadow

Callum’s body was heavy and felt hot and cold at the same time. A stinging sensation was hitting his body at all fronts and he was back in his darkness. The last thing he could remember was seeing that guard and ending himself before she got the chance to herself or worse capture him and do something awful to him.

_The thought crossed his mind, but the way they stared at each other for such a long time allowed Callum to clue in on the idea that he was not back in Katolis. ___

_Everything screamed ‘NEW WORLD’ as he looked around after being witness to that strange vision that he saw of that dragon. Even stranger than that, the disembodied voice was telling him to kill it, but he was just a man…an artist with little to no experience in fighting anything. ___

It would not matter now as Callum took a less than easy way out to avoid the fight with a creature of that magnitude. It honestly stunk to think about how he would have to think for the rest of his…dead life that he could not even keep a promise to himself not even a few minutes before offing himself.

Callum’s thoughts laid dormant in his mind as he wanted to just appreciate the fact, he would not have to go through with anything that voice was saying.

“Wake up!”

_Oh boy the voice was speaking to Callum again and it was damn persistent. ___

_The voice was really…feminine? That cant be right, the last time he checked it sounded like a man, and not like a girl with a gigantic Scottish accent. ___

“WAKE UP!”

The voice was hitting Callum hard than before and he was only tired of it and rolled over…in his grave?

His body from what he could feel was moving and rolling over until he felt himself fall from something and his head contacted something hard.

Callum’s eyes jutted open and he brought his hands to his head and saw that he rolled off a bed and connected with a nightstand.

“FUCK!”, Callum’s voice was beyond a scream at that point and he started to roll around furiously attempting to quell his pain amassing on the side of his head.

“Hey, calm down, that looked like it hurt but you can’t be that loud.” A voice from the room said that sounded like she was trying not to burst out laughing and wanted to be serious about the situation.

Callum looked up and saw the same guard from the forest and it was actually a she…It took him a few moments to connect the dots that this guard was actually a lady because the armor she donned was allowing for no curvature in the front of her body.

\------------------------------------------------------

After a moment of struggling with the pain, Callum stood up and looked around his location and tried to take in where he was currently at.

The room was unique, it seems to be carved into a tree as Callum could see the bark walls encasing the room. Decorations themselves consisted of a bed with a teal looking blanket and pillow along with some hand-knitted ones of puffy creature with eyes. The rest of the room had a more gladiator feel to it in comparison to the bed, as weapons of all kinds adorned the walls and training dummies with severe scratch marks sat in one corner.

If anyone were to come into this room, the first thing Callum thought they would see would be the executioner style digs she had rather than the cute looking bed oddly put into one corner of said room.

Callum decided that maybe it was not wise to continue looking around a room of a lady, especially if that lady was a weapon wielding maniac.

As he cleared his head with a loud sigh, Callum turned to look at the lady still wearing the complete set of armor starring at him with such curiosity like he might pull a rabbit out of his hat…if he had one.

Callum walked closer to the lady and prepared himself mentally and physically for the repercussion of talking to his captor.

“I’m sorry, but could you explain to me how I’m not dead on the floor of that forest?”

The girl looked at him with such curiosity that it is kind of made Callum take a step back so she would not do anything too hasty.

“I used a Moonshadow healing spell that stopped your wound from killing you and brought you to my room so you could recover properly.” The guard said sternly but still speaking with concern that he might do something like what cause him to be here.

“Wait, did you say a spell? Like in a magic spell?” Callum’s eyes beamed at the girl as he started walking closer to her to hear an explanation.

The girl nodded her head and opened her mouth, “Yes, it’s a very powerful healing spell that can bring someone back from the brink of death but sadly it consumes a tremendous amount of mana to do it, so I won’t be able to do it again for quite some time.”

Callum felt a bit of curiosity hit him as he raised his hand to his throat and rubbed where the wound was and felt bear skin. The skin was smooth to boot, not even a scratch or a scar where the skin would have healed around.

Callum’s inquisitive mind took the reign and asked,” What other kinds of spells can you do? Can you cast fire or move water or…”?

The lady spoke up to prevent Callum from continuing his rant about things he did not even completely understand.

“I know you have a lot of questions, but as I was the one to save your life, I think I deserve to get mine answered first.”

Callum closed his mouth as he nodded nervously at the lady, not only out of embarrassment that he got caught rambling but also because her face turned profoundly serious very quickly.

The lady motioned Callum to sit on the bed while she pulled up a chair and sat in it waiting for Callum to do as he was told.

Callum felt tensions rise in the room but disregarded the feelings and sat cautiously on the bed facing the warrior and hopefully not his enemy.

The lady stared him up and down and proceeded to talk to him while she continued searching him for something.

“What are you exactly? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an elf without pointed ears or marking on your body.”

Callum took a moment to answer as he himself was confused at her question.

_what did she mean elf? ___

“I am a human and I thought you were as well?”

The words alone cause the lady to stand from her chair and step back from Callum in horror.

“A human? No that’s impossible, humans were purged from these lands for hundreds of centuries!”

The lady looked at Callum with such distaste that Callum felt like he was the ugliest person in the entire world. This in his own right, made he look down in defeat as this lady with no kind of appealing look to herself call him out for being ugly.

Callum’s curiosity peaked as he looked back up to the elf and asked her a question of his own.

“What happened to the humans, did elves purge them for something wrong or because they wanted to?”

When those words left his mouth, the elf looked at him with such confusion about the subject that she started to pout her lips to think about how to answer this.

“If you don’t actually know the reason why then I can guess that either you were born to believe that humans did nothing wrong , or you are an outsider to your own people that…don’t exist.”

Callum himself laughed to himself as he thought about the choices especially regarding the last answer, cause even that would be hard to explain if that was true.

The elf glared daggers at Callum as she saw him smiling at her complicated conundrum.

“Then explain yourself and I may let you live!” The elf stomped forward and reached behind her back to pull out grips that she seamlessly flipped into swords and pointed them at Callum’s chest.

Callum’s first thought was to run but then that would require him to run through her, and then he would have to navigate his unknown location around him. He decided to take a deep breathe and looked straight at her and motioned himself to feign his surrender to hopefully get her to drop her weapons.

The elf continued her posture and never twitched while she held her blades out against Callum.

Callum simply shrugged and proceeded to at least plead his case so that he may continue living from this point on.

“Well let us see, I come from a giant metropolitan city called Katolis and there we have humans of all kinds of races and not a hint of magical beings anywhere. So, if I am going to be frank with you, where I come from the whole idea of magic and elves is completely out of left field and you might just be the crazy one here.”

The elf looked away for a moment to think about his response, Callum could see her attempting to mouth the words _metropolitan _and _left field _.____

In that few moments she looked back at Callum with fire in her eyes.

“You’re in no position to be lying to me human scum, and if you want a chance to see daylight again, don’t lie again.”

Callum thought on that for a moment and let out a sigh, she was right that he was in no position to lie but that was the same thing he was thinking.

“I have no reason to lie to you, you’re the armed one and I’m the one being cooperative with you about the questions you may have.”

She started to lower her weapons slightly as she pondered yet another mind breaking answer from this human.

“Tell me about you then?”

Callum looked at her shocked because he expected her to ask him a question with a bit more firepower behind the clouded questions in both of their minds, but in the end, this is still a question.

“My name is Callum Dragonai. How about you?”

The elf looked at him continuing to lower her swords and answered with just her first name.

“I’m rayla and I want to know why you were in the woods.”

Callum was growing tired of these pointless questions that even he could not answer, but he owed her at least his take on it as she did save his life.

“I’m not sure, I only remember being in my world and then seeing some weird vision and then I woke up on the floor of that forest.”

Rayla collapsed her swords as she put them back behind her in her holsters and sat back on the chair facing Callum once again.

Callum took the time to notice her lavender eyes and purple markings on her cheeks as he looked at the exposed parts of the helmet. The more he looked at her the more Callum noticed that she was not lying herself as he finally saw that she had horns poking out through the helmet not on the helmet.

He snapped back to reality as Rayla looked back to him and continued asking questions.

“Do you really not know why humans were purged from the lands of Xadia?”

Callum’s firm nod in disapproval made Rayla rest her head on the back of her chair as she sighed and decided to indulge the human in the history of her world.

“Now listen Callum, I will tell you this once so try not to forget it okay?”

With a swift head shake he settled onto the bed till his back was on the wall so he could comfortably listen to Rayla’s tale.

“It was in the beginning of Xadia’s creation by the Dragons of Disaster and many races not just humans or elves coexisted. Thanks to the Dragons of Light and Darkness, the world was able to experience life and death, and the world itself lived prosperously. There were no wars and no conflicts to create tensions between any of the races. That was until several centuries later that the Dragon of the Tempest, Yutrania, boycotted the poaching of life from her great sea that humans used to survive off. This angered humans to the point that the most important place of gathering food was taken from them without a chance to make a deal. Humans themselves are exceptionally strong at fighting that they have the strongest connection the Dragon of War and because of that they can learn Combat skills faster than any other race. In the end they became fed up with Lady Yutrania and went to her domain to slay the dragon and claim their place on those seas they used to sail on. The fighting took many decades but, in the aftermath, the humans came out on top and slayed the dragon. Slaying a dragon is the most forbidden thing to do and this elected a war amongst all the races and other dragons of the realm. Although humans were wiped from existence, many dragonlings and hundreds of thousands of other races were slaughtered in the attempt to stop the humans. As the humans were killed, the remaining tribes of races elected to form a peace treaty until their kingdoms were brought back into order and the Dragons of Creation felt safe again from the skirmish.”

Rayla looked down at her feet as she finished her explanation and exhaled a breath like she let a huge weight from her shoulders.

“That was several hundred centuries ago and no race has had a reason to attack on another, so we live in a perpetual time of peace.”

Callum took in all the information that he was told and of course he had more questions but decided to secure his safety first and then ask them later. He looked around the room again and laughed a bit at the sight.

“If you’re in a perpetual time of peace then why does it look like I’m in an armory.”

Callum smiled fully as he struggled to hold in a laugh at his comment.

Rayla laughed too as she took the moment to think happier thoughts rather than depressing history of her ancestors.

Rayla started to laugh less as she had another question to ask Callum.

“What’s your world like Callum? You said there is no magic, is it a wasteland out there?”

Callum stopped his laughing as well and looked at Rayla to simply feel his once happy emotions slip into one of sadness.

“My world is filled with ways humans tried to simplify everything and take shortcuts, and along those lines we ended up getting greedy and began fighting amongst ourselves. These fights happen more and more as time go on and more people get hurt, to be honest, your world is ten thousand times better than mine.”

Callum and Rayla sat there for a moment and just laughed at their whole conversation being one filled with anger and a killing tendency to a relaxed one.

\---------------------------------------------------------

After they calmed down from there laughing session Rayla looked outside the window and noticed the time outside and cursed to herself as she got up.

“Look Callum, I need to do something, you can do whatever you want until I get back, but my only rule is to stay in this room and answer the door for no one. Deal?”

Callum sighed as an attempt to liven the mood but ultimately agreed to her demand and simply waved at her as she left the room and he heard the door lock behind her.

All alone in a girl’s room, Callum himself never imagined that this would happen to him, but he was not too excited at the thought cause Rayla seemed to be lacking in the…just about everything department. The only thing Calum could really say that caught his eyes was her own, but that was it.

The armor she wore was covering her entire body and it had a smooth layer all around it and the breastplate was flat except for the indents on the lower have for those guards with extremely noticeable six packs.

Callum started to think about Rayla and put her eyes on a body with a bulging six pack and the thought made him shutter in the aspect.v  
_“I hope not all elves look like her or I might have to wonder to another race if I live long enough to get a love interest.” ___

Callum’s mind wandered over to a chest sitting in a corner of the room with a closest of some sort right next to it.

She did say that I could do anything in the room if I do not leave, Callum’s thoughts were pressuring him to look around a bit more rather than sitting on the bed the whole time till she returned.

Callum walked over to the chest and moved the latch and lifted the top of the chest to reveal a blanket covering something obviously. Callum simply grabbed the blanket and threw it over his shoulder and froze in place as he saw what was hidden.

Under the blanket was an assortment of women’s clothes ranging from socks to shirts and even undergarments. Callum gulped as he grabbed one of Rayla’s bras and pulled it closer to himself as he saw that it was larger than he anticipated. From his memories he looked back to the Rayla in armor and could not process why if she were flat chested why she would need bras that would cover her chest with such room. He tried to think about what size these are because he used to go clothe shopping with his aunt Amaya and her wife and ended up trying to figure out the differences in bra sizes.

“OH MY GOD” Callum’s mouth slowly opening as he realized that Rayla was indeed 32B.

His mind raced as he tried to dismiss that thought because she looked flat as a board the first time, he looked at her. Callum slapped his head as it just occurred to him that she must have been wrapped down to fit into the armor.

Callum instantly threw the bra back into the chest and quickly covered the contents of the chest with the blanket and slammed the chest shut with a breath of relief.

He knew if anything he was an awkward guy but never did, he considers himself to be a pervert.

Callum sunk at the thought of being labeled a pervert, he barely had the stability to survive someone labeling him anything. He was going to take this to his grave and the only person he dares tell would be that disembodied voice from his visions.

Callum sat back on the bed breathing heavy as he attempted to calm him self and cool down as he felt his entire body heating up from discovering the plain truth about the elf girl that just left the room he was in a moment ago.

“This is going to a long night indeed…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out im going to be posting alternating chapters, next chapter will be Rayla's perspective and then it will switch back and forth.
> 
> Im beyond excited to continue this story and hopefully if it continiues getting great traction and people actaully enjoy it, i will post this more often.
> 
> Do bare with me as i may vary from long long chapters to ones like this chapter frequently.


	3. Never Answers just Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rayla needs to handle herself just as much as those in her circle, not including the ridiculous human sitting in her room, decisions will be made, but what kind?

# Chapter 3: Never Answers just Questions

Rayla turned around and locked the door to her bedroom with a human inside it. The thought of it alone made her sigh in the idea of disgracing her ancestors by harboring their arch nemesis.

As much as it pained her to look at what she had just done to the entirety of Xadia’s peace by allowing Callum to stay alive, Rayla decided to keep him a secret till she had some time to think about what to do next.

Rayla readjusted herself as she proudly walked down the stairs of her home to head over to Serah’s place to give the armor back and be done with this patrolling business.

The stairs spiraled downwards till they opened to a decently large loft with a tall short haired elf with darker skin and rings around his horn who sat quietly on the couch reading something.

“Ethari!” Rayla said under her breathe in realization that someone was home and may have heard the entire conversation she had with a mortal enemy of her people.

Ethari placed his parchment down and looked around the room till he zeroed in on Rayla looked quite out of place with her royal guardsman armor in a pedestrian household.

Ethari looked at Rayla for just a moment before turning around to resume reading his extremely interesting looking parchment.

“You know Rayla, if you got caught wearing that armor and you don’t actual have a position on the Royal Army, you could get locked up for a long while.”

Rayla felt herself relax a bit as she walked closer to Ethari and tried to push back his statement and figure out if he truly heard the human upstairs in her bedroom.

“Nice parchment Ethari, pretty interesting stuff I guess, but I was wondering, did you happen to hear any noise from down here.”

Ethari still paying a little too much attention to the parchment as he opened his mouth.

“Was I supposed to hear something, because I just got home a few moments before you came down here.”

Rayla’s heart slowed immensely as she knew she was safe from any kind of problems arising from keeping a human in Xadia.

Rayla nodded slightly to Ethari to show him that everything was ok, and she walked towards the door.

“Ill be back soon, I’m off to return the armor and give Serah a good thrashing, so I won’t be home for a little bit. If my parents ask, tell them ill be back before it gets too late.”

Ethari noised his approval of the idea and Rayla exited her family home and walked towards the center of the city to confront her friend.

\----------------------------------------

Silvergroove itself was quite a large elven city that laid hidden in the giant tress that laid across the forest that homed her clan’s lives. Most homes were stationed inside of the tree trunks of the great trees and some were littered on the ground of the forest.

Although it was all the same to Rayla, the city she was born in and grew up in always made her smile seeing all the rich history built up in the centuries of generations alive today.

As elven warriors received their armor of war, they were moved up on the social hierarchy of Elvendom and lived in nice places amongst the top of the trees. It was said that the closer to the moon a Moonshadow elf gets the closer they become with the Dragon of Darkness, Elyssia. The moon itself was made by that dragon and it is our closest connection to the dragon, and the tress that grew around the homeland symbolizes the desire she wants to keep her children closer to her.

Rayla’s mother and father as well as her uncle Runaan are important military advisors and warriors close to the Queen and King of the clans. Rayla herself wanted to join the royal guard one day to join up with her parents but that will not happen as no new members of the royal guard get taken anymore.

She sighed as she thought about being removed from the exams to join the royal guard because the ranks were far beyond capacity.

The more Rayla thought about it the angrier she got as she was not even given a chance to show that she was a born warrior to protect their clans.

Yet Rayla just let out a sigh as she claimed herself down because there is no war to put anyone in harms way, so there is no desire in anyone to fight anything. So, her dream of joining the royal guard was mute and completely obsolete.

Before she even realized it Rayla was in the center of town and close to Serah’s home as she was one of the lucky ones to be in a shop/home.

Serah’s family owned a clothing shop that sold primarily normal clothes. They used to be the one stop shop for all armor in the Silvergroove armed forces, but her family did away with that awfully long ago.

Rayla walked up to the store and entered through the front and saw Serah’s parents conversing with said person and her boyfriend.

As she got closer, she could start to hear the conversation and was able to clue in before she reached them.

“I understand that you’re old enough to make your own choices, but you can dodge your duties as a royal guard. It was your decision to join them to begin with so it’s your responsibilities.”

Serah’s parents were two older looking elves with dark skin and very intricate blue markings covering their bodies.

“Mom! Dad! Listen I need you to understand that **yes** I may have ditched my duties but I wont get in trouble as I was able to get a reliable replacement to cover for me to keep anyone from getting too antsy about all this.”

It was almost as if on que that she turned around and waved over to Rayla approaching with a less than happy frown spreading across her face.

“Oh, goddess above, why is Serah so special?” Serah’s mother slapped her hands to her head as she shook to disapprove of the alternative.

Rayla walked up to Serah and started removing the armor piece by piece and set them down on the counter of the store.

“LET’S GET ONE THING STRAIGHT SERAH!”

Rayla’s voice filled with anger trying to keep composed because her uncle’s husband Ethari was particularly good friends with Serah’s parents.

“I will not do this again in this lifetime or the next one.”

Serah looked over to Rayla with a coy smile waving her hand in a way to thank Rayla for taking the wrap on this whole problem and settling out a prior debt they owed to each other.

Before Rayla was able to bow to give herself leave, both of Serah’s parents beckon her over to talk about something. Reluctantly Rayla walked over and decided to indulge her foolish friend’s parents and greeted them with a forced smile.

At first the father looked at her like he was not sure if she needed to use the restroom or was just trying to skip the pleasantries. Regardless of that he started to pull something out from behind his counter and handed Rayla something wrapped in clothe.

“Give this to Ethari would you, I meant to give him this order the other day, but he seemed incredibly engrossed in something as of late.”

Rayla took the parcel and left the store and walked back towards her home and started to think about what Serah’s dad said to her. It was true that Ethari was incredible entranced by something in the parchment he was reading, and she was slightly curious to see if he would be open to talk about it.

She looked away from the parcel she was holding and looked up towards the canopies of the trees to see the night sky and moon poking through filling her heart with a feeling of bliss that she surely needed after such a day.

Rayla wanted more than anything to just go home and sleep but that was going to be impossible with the fact that she had a world ending problem to deal with. At most she had to deal with the occasional hunt or unlocking someone’s door to their home because the forgot their keys. Not having to think about what to do with a human being that should not even exist in Xadia in the first place.

Her mind raced thinking about all the possibilities of dealing with Callum that would prevent her from being hunted by the very people she calls family.

Then it clicked…being hunted…by…HER FAMILY!

Rayla snapped out of her trance and remembered that she would have to hide Callum from four extremely militarized individuals that will be in the same place as him.

She picked up the pace and started running the rest of the way to hopefully beat her parents’ home before she got a moment alone with Callum to discuss how she should hide him for the night and possibly forever.

And with that she sped through the paved roads that lined her calm, peaceful town.

\----------------------------------------------------

With more effort than she originally intended to put forth to reach her home Rayla was starting to deal with heavy breathing as she started to climb the stairs encircling the tree to her house. In a few moments Rayla stopped at her door to collect herself and walk inside so nonchalantly that even she would assume that she was not up to anything weird.

Rayla opened the door and walked in to be greeted by four elves sitting around a table in the loft speaking loudly to each other drinking some moonberry extract. From what Rayla could tell, her parents and her uncles were intoxicated by the extract and just mindlessly filling the room with banter.

“Rayla! Where have you been?” Tiadrin spouted in Rayla’s direction as she threw herself around the couch in attempt to stare her in the eye.

Tiadrin is Rayla’s mother and she is an unbelievably beautiful moonshadow elf as she has light blue eyes and a very slender figure. Her hair is normally kept in a wavy bob but as she got home, Rayla imagines she let some of it down and unwound with some alcohol.

“Didn’t Ethari tell you, I was heading to Serah’s and would be back before it got too late?”

Tiadrin looked over to Ethari glaring at him with such intensity that Ethari spat up some of his drink and shook his head slowly as he was trying to avoid the mother’s gaze.

“Let her be Tiadrin, she’s 22, and she can be out as late as she wants…as long as its not with any boys.” Lain dragged the word boy out with disgust at thinking Rayla would be spending time with a boy.

Lain was Rayla’s father who in his own right was taller than Rayla and far leaner and muscular than herself. His orange eyes made Rayla think of the sun when she was younger and that made her father her go to parent to talk to whenever she felt sad. That being said, Lain could not hold an ounce of liquor and was in and out of consciousness as he attempted to keep his eyes from closing with slapping himself to stay awake. With every slap his short messy hair that he had normally worn was completely standing up and his face red from all the strikes.

“I don’t think any boy could keep up with her even if they had a head start!”

This came from Rayla’s uncle Runaan, an extremely powerful warrior assigned to protect the royal family and he himself never drank, probably to keep himself on edge. Runaan was far more composed than the other three as he still had his royal tunic on and kept his long hair braided down to his back.

Rayla was looking around the room to see if they were particular on moving around throughout the night and saw that around the couch laid all their weapons to show that the group was dormant for the rest of the night and would most likely crash right there.

Rayla took the chance to escape to her room by faking a yawn.

“I’m pretty tired so I’m going to head to bed early, I love you all and ill see you in the morning. BYE!”

She darted off leaving the parcel on the table next to the window by the front door and went towards her room leaving confusion amongst the group of elves in her living room.

\------------------------------------------------

Rayla approached her door and unlocked it with her key and slipped inside quickly enough to lock the door with relative ease. She relaxed as she slid down the door on her back and sat in front her door looking in her room to see Callum. Sitting very awkwardly on her bed looking around the room whistling with his face slightly pink.

As she stood up to walk over to Callum, she heard him say, “Wow…you look really different than you did in your armor.”

Rayla looked at him and simply told him outright.

“Wasn’t my armor, I was covering for someone else and ill take that as a compliment seeing as you abided by my rules from earlier.”

Rayla sat down on the edge of her bed and wanted to crash and forget about this stupid day so much…but with a sigh she elected to talk to Callum.

“So, I’ve been thinking, maybe I should give you some extra blankets and a pillow and you can sleep in my closest while you’re here.”

Rayla turned around to the human to see his reaction to her idea and he nodded.

“Sounds like as good idea as any, would be awkward if anyone saw me sleeping in your bed…or out in the middle of the floor.”

Rayla laughed a bit thinking how funny it would be to see her dad walk in and see him sleeping in her room and elbow drop him into oblivion. Perhaps another time, for now she needed to handle the situation at hand.

Rayla got up from her bed and slid the doors open on her closest revealing only a couple of outfits and a variety of shoes. The closest was practically free for him to sleep in anyway because Rayla only wore the same outfits every day, and she was not one for such fashion as certain elves did in the royal court.

After removing the clothes, she placed a couple of pillows and some extra blankets she had laying inside of her personal belongings chest.

Callum himself was very patient in the time it took Rayla to set up the makeshift bed in her slightly cramped closest.

Rayla finished the set up and stepped aside as Callum started to settle into and cover himself with a blanket.

Rayla started to walk over to her bed and fell face first onto the bed and simply decided to sleep how she was now and deal with the consequences in the morning.

As she lifted her hand, and flicked it in a up and down motion, a white light appeared at her fingertips and the lights dimmed to darkness as Rayla tried to sleep.

She was so close to embracing the sweetness of sleep until she heard Callum clearing his throat and began to talk quietly.

“Thanks, Rayla, I mean it, for not killing me…or turning me into the authorities and even giving me a place to sleep for the night.”

Rayla turned her head to face the closest and groaned in agreement to get the human to understand what needed to happen right now.

Once again Rayla was so close to falling asleep until she heard Callum talk again and abruptly sat up and groaned as she walked over to the closed closest door and sat against it.

‘Ok listen Callum, Ill give you a chance to ask five questions. Only five, and after that for the love of the goddess please go to sleep.”

She could hear a quick agreement coming from Callum and waited for his questions.

“Do you hate humans?”

The first question hit Rayla harder than she thought as she felt herself wake up in true shock how quickly things escalated.

“Not particularly, I was raised to hate humans…even if they didn’t exist at the time.”

Callum fell silent for a second and began again.

“Why are you helping me?”

Rayla rubbed her temples, _why is this human asking such demanding questions! ___

“I don’t know if I’m going to be completely honest with you, I guess I’m just using you as an attempt to add some excitement to my life.”

Callum continued to stay silent for a lot longer after that answer, perhaps to reflect on him being used for personal gain.

“Ok that’s fine cause we are using each other, and that brings me to my next question, you said that humans are exceptional fighters, but how can I be one if I never held a weapon?”

Rayla took a moment to think about how to answer this one because she knew truly little regarding human fighting tactics.

“I guess I could train you and if you show great promise then the rest will come naturally.”

Callum made many noises of agreement before continuing, and honestly that got a laugh out of Rayla that he was so accepting of her answers.

“Can you teach others how to cast magic?”

Rayla became wide-eyed at the mention and simply said yes even if she fibbed because she new only a few medical spells that were required of those in the royal army.

“Can you teach me?”

Rayla turned around to investigate the darkness of the closest and simply answered.

“Teach you how to do magic? I’m sorry to burst your bubble Callum, but humans are the strongest fighters in the land and because they are the trade off is not being able to do magic.”

Rayla stood up and started to walk away from the closest.

“Alright you asked your questions, time for bed.”

That was until she looked back and saw two glowing blue eyes peering through the doors and Callum whispered with desperation.

“Please Rayla, can we try both, I don’t want to leave out the chance If i can do magic. That would be the most incredible thing for me ever.”

Rayla sat on her bed watching the pulsating blue eyes staring at her and felt such a weird feeling inside her, almost wanting to tell him no and be done with it. Yet this was the first time someone ever begged to learn something from her, because in her life, she was avoided for being a fighter in a peaceful town, and for being apart of the family with ties to the royal family.

“Ok Callum I’ll try but please don’t be disappointed if you can’t. I promise we will try in the morning, so please get some rest.”

There was no answer just simply the blue eyes going away and all Rayla could hear was Callum shuffling around to become more comfortable.

Rayla followed suit and laid back into her bed closing her eyes, thinking _what did she get herself into, and most importantly, what is wrong with this human? ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter another time to be happy for myself, i decided to push out another chapter of this today thanks to Elite_7 for giving me to rush of energy to push this out.
> 
> So much to be had trying to navigate around Rayla's family, that i almost feel bad for her to have to deal with.  
> Yet this is going to be so much fun 
> 
> MWHAHAHAHAHA


	4. Novice Magic Training

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day has come and Callum can't contain himself, yet new thoughts will appear to him and he truly wonders if he can get them answered.

# Chapter 4: Novice Magic Training

Callum was sleeping in the closet of his new…acquaintance Rayla and fell asleep after a while since he was restless about getting a chance to see actual magic. The idea alone was so fascinating to him since back in Katolis the only form of magic was a random guy on the street pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

The time itself was completely gone to Callum as he couldn’t see the outside and determine the time of day but he could imagine it was incredibly late in the night as he just stared at his hands wanting to cast a magical beam or fly or something to that degree.

The darkness of the closet was incredibly daunting to Callum as he tried to settle in, every time he closed his eyes, he could only imagine the state he was in prior to waking up in the forest. Alone, and completely consumed by a crushing darkness…along with a cryptic voice that did not consider Callum’s dislike of being crushed.

Callum tried not to turn around too much as to be courteous to the other sleeping nearby him. However, his very being wanted to hit Rayla with a million questions that he had colliding with his brain with every breath he took.

As much as he wanted to assume he would get a good night’s sleep even after him restlessly staying up way past the moment Rayla drifted off, that would be a farfetched idea and he knew his lack of sleep would bite him in the ass in the morning.

Callum’s eyes eventually did grow heavy and his heart slowed along with his breathing. His mind was losing itself to sleep finally and he settled comfortably into the makeshift bed he was on and simply…slept.

\-----------------------------------------------------------

Callum slept like a log; his happiness was off the chart with him being able to sleep but one thing did surprise him a lot. As he laid down, he could feel an incredibly strong breeze hitting him. His thoughts raced and he settled on a normal response for once. _Who left the window open? ___

__  
His grogginess slapped him insanely hard to the point he started fluttering his eyes slowly to stop the breeze. Callum propped himself on one of his arms and tried to get a baring on his surroundings. The more Callum thought about his position the more confused he became._ _

_When did I get so much room in the closet? Also, when did the ground get so hard ___

Callum started rubbing his eyes to try to wake himself up but was immediately interrupted by a voracious roar that made him go wide-eyed and felt his heart drop from his chest.

Callum finally took in where he was and saw that he was no longer in the closest of Rayla’s room but on barren ground on what seemed to be a mountain.

Callum gazed around cautiously to see where that noise came from and saw a giant shadow racing toward him causing Callum to stand up and back away. The closer the shadow got; the more fear Callum felt that he did not want to look at what the creature making the shadow was.

It was in a split moment that the shadow connected with Callum, and he fell over backwards purely out of instinct and landed on his back looking straight up.

In what seemed like a few moments was only a blink or two from Callum as he saw what was making the shadow. The creature was a dragon flying around high above Callum and it was not alone. Hundreds of dragons layered the sky and intertwined between their flight patterns that made Callum think of all being a part of an extravagant dance.

Callum wished he had his sketchbook with him so he could attempt to capture this moment. It almost seemed too surreal and if speaking to an actual elf was not enough to convince him of being in a new world this took the cake.

The longer his eyes stared at the magnificent creatures flying above with such freedom, the more Callum wanted to learn about magic. His mind raced as he thought of all the cool things he may or may not be able to do.

His mind raced and raced until he was interrupted by a familiar voice.

“I will give you some helpful advice that will make you reach an even greater height than the dragons above you.”

Callum snapped his head looking for the disembodied voice and elected to sigh and answer regardless of his concern of being transported to seeing that undead dragon again.

“What are you talking about?”

The voice reared itself closer to Callum to more so speak rather than yell at him.

“Greed…”

Those words made Callum uneasy as he thought exactly how greed can turn wonderful people into heinous monsters.

The voice continued after a prolonged pause.

“Greed is the ultimate downfall of all living things…and this will be your greatest strength.”

Callum thought exactly what the voice meant by that, the idea alone was confusing and even if he was thinking on it, the idea was still hazy.

“You were born with an exceptional gift, one that makes your greed come without the cost of life, and your inquisitive mind makes an excellent duo with this.”

Callum was growing more confused by the second and was frankly getting fed up with the lack of explanation going about.

“What do you mean my gift, and my greed?”

The voice fell silent and only the thing entering Callum’s ears was the sound of the Dragons above and the powerful winds brushing past him.

Callum felt like the more he wanted answers from the voice the more questions he would be left with. That would have to be something he would take into consideration if he met it again.

The same thoughts kept crossing his mind, inflicting a horrible headache as the words repeated themselves.

_My Greed…my Gift… ___

And it was as soon as Callum closed his eyes to think that the sounds of the mountain top vanished and he felt his body wrapped around blistering hot blankets and cramped into the small closet as he was accustomed to last night.

Callum opened his eyes as he took in where he was at again, the closet this time but he could see the room he was apart of becoming brighter from the sun rising in the morning.

He slowly opened the closet with ease as to not wake Rayla and get a much needed stretch in to align his back after being crippled into that tight space.

The room seemed a lot more pleasant than it did the day before as a dim light of the sun entered the room and gave Callum a nostalgic feeling of waking up every morning to see his family making breakfast.

Callum wanted so much to go back to his family, more than anything and that clouded his brain much more than he intended. Because at that moment Callum started to subconsciously open the bedroom door and head downstairs.

Yet before the door handle was moved to allow Callum to pull on the door to open it. A loud THUD! Snapped Callum out of his trance and he froze after seeing a sword sinking into the middle of the door.

Callum fell backwards with a growing since of dread and he turned around slowly and fearfully to see an elf with an extended arm and a completely dazed face as she just woke up.

“Where do ya think ya goin?” Rayla groaned as she started to rub her eyes and positions herself to get out of her bed.

Callum was lost in his fear as he looked back and forth to the blade and Rayla.

He became scared thinking that maybe if she were not still half-asleep then she would have nailed him with a sword and been done with it.

With an exaggerated gulp Callum answered, “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere…I just got lost…in my normal routine.”

Rayla looked at Callum and shrugged and just started mumbling about he had to be more careful and he must remember that he is an enemy to everything in Xadia.

For the most part, Callum just sat on his bed starring into the open room with his legs against his chest.

Callum wanted more than anything to eat something but more importantly, he wanted to talk to Rayla about something else…

“Hey Rayla, can I ask you something?”

Rayla came out from her bathroom with her hair in a tight ponytail and wearing a long sleeve black shirt with a teal tunic and purple leggings with the same pair of boots from the day before.

“Listen I know you want to train but we will have to wait as my family won’t be leaving for work till a little later.”

Callum scanned Rayla over and over trying to think about the best way to bring this up without getting stabbed by a sword.

“I was wondering if you knew that your speech becomes really different when you’re tired?”

Rayla whipped around and Callum could see a slight pink brushing against her cheeks.

“I know I do, it just sort of happens, I can’t help it…”

She walked closer to Callum glaring daggers at him.

“…And if you tell anyone, anyone that doesn’t want to kill you, I’ll do it myself.”

Callum gulped as he nodded in agreement and watched Rayla walk over to the door to remove her weapon from it.

From his perspective, Callum could see that aside from Rayla’s brutish ways of handling normal situations, that she was quite beautiful. The armor really did her injustice as her lithe body was easily defined by her outfit and the way her snow-white hair bounced gleefully in the sunlight made Callum feel his cheeks get hot for only a moment or two.

“Alright Callum, give me a moment, I’m going to head downstairs and grab some food for us to eat so be right back.”

Callum’s nod was dismissed as Rayla walked out the door and closed it silently behind her.

There was a nice thought that roamed around in Callum’s head as he silently waited for his…acquaintance’s return…

_If I were not a human would she like me?_

\----------------------------------------------

Rayla returned far quicker than Callum imagined, and she was carrying a head sized rag with food stuff into it.

She laid it onto her bed and opened the bag to reveal an assortment of different kinds of fruit and…other fruit.

Callum scanned over the selection and saw that quite literally what she had brought up for them to eat was a diverse amount of fruits. Callum slumped onto the bed as he really wished for some food for way more sustainment and not something that he could eat thousands of and not feel half-full.

Rayla looked at Callum just sifting through the moonberries and other delicacies and laughed at him.

“Why aren’t you digging in, you know all these fruits and especially the moonberries are extremely high in nutrients.”

Callum did not feel himself change his prospective on the breakfast regardless of Rayla telling him that it was good for him.

The more he looked at the food the more his stomach rumbled for something to eat and only out of spite Callum took a couple of moonberries and shoved them into his mouth.

Almost as quickly as he decided to eat the food to stall his belly from rumbling, Callum started really tasting the berries, the juices went down his throat and he felt his body perking up regardless of not eating anything in god knows how long.

His eyes darted back to the fruit as he started shoving different fruits into his mouth and enjoying them, each one distinctively unique and packed with flavor that Callum could not get enough of.

Eventually, they both finished and Rayla picked up the rag and threw it over her shoulder and looked at Callum.

“I’m going to return this and talk to my family, when I come back up, we will start training ok?”

Callum felt himself looking into Rayla’s lavender eyes and shook his head after he turned slightly to stop his neck from heating up.

Rayla rose from the bed and before she could turn to leave Callum grabbed her arm and she turned her head to face him.

“Rayla I was wondering if…”

He wanted to ask her what she thought of his stupid idea and to see what her reaction would be before he proceeded growing feelings for her.

“…I could get anymore of those moonberries later?”

Rayla laughed and nodded as Callum let her go and she left the room and him alone to hate himself for backing out on a question that he really wanted to know.

\----------------------------------------------

It was quite some time before Rayla returned to her room and greeted Callum with a smile that he instantly returned. She motioned him to follow her as she walked around the corner and left her bedroom wide open. Without hesitation, Callum stood up and walked quite fast after the elf preparing himself to start his training.

Callum walked into a large room filled with a bunch of wooden dummies and weapon racks lining the walls. The room itself looked like a testing ground for fighting especially since there was a small elevated ring in the middle of the room with a white square lining it.

“Alright Callum, today we will begin your lessons with Master Rayla!”

Rayla beamed at the title she gave herself and looked over to see Callum staring at her smiling his heart out.

Callum was so ready to start this that he was bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“This is your Novice Magic Training, and we will start with learning how magic falls into certain categories.”

Callum sat on his knees patiently waiting for Rayla to continue the lesson and get past all the supposed common knowledge.

“There are Six Primal magic sources in Xadia, and each one can be used offensively or defensively. They are Sun, Moon, Star, Earth, Sky, and Ocean magic. Since I am a moonshadow elf, I have a higher affinity to moon magic, and those who follow another Dragon of Creation are born with a higher attunement of other magic. Its not to say other races are unable to learn other magic, it will just take longer than it would if they tried to learn their own respective magic. And since I only decided to learn moon magic that is what I will be teaching you.”

Callum still seating in front of his teacher was continuously beaming listening to all this talk of magic.

“I will be upfront with you Callum as I rely on my swords and my battle prowess to win a fight and only rely on my magic defensively.”

Callum still undeterred and beaming at Rayla.

Callum was inching closer and closer to Rayla ready to see her magic in action and skip the discussions.

“One more thing I should say, there are two different ways of casting magic.”

Callum’s face fell almost immediately and grew into one of horror as he thought he would have to put in double of the work.

Rayla saw him and quickly spoke up to quell any concern he has on the subject.

“The first way is to draw draconic runes, and this is a guaranteed way to cast a strong spell but it takes time to cast and will not drain your mana. The second way is being able to cast the spells on your own feeling alone and this will consume more mana depending on the strength of the spell you wish to output.”

Callum took in the statement and raised his hand to his chin and started rubbing it to piece some things together for himself.

“So Rayla, if I was to use mana then that who be like using my stamina to run?”

Rayla looked at Callum and nodded honestly looking proud at him for figuring it out.

“I only know two spells that require a catalyst, both are healing spells.”

Callum did not have to think about it when she said catalyst as he understood many things needed something extra to get started.

Rayla pulled out a small flower that has not bloomed and tossed it to Callum so he could examine it.

Callum clumsily caught it after almost dropping it on the uptake and noticed that the plant itself was just a bunch of white petals closed on something inside the plant.

Rayla spoke up to grab Callum’s attention back to the lesson.

“That is a LunarHeart flower, a powerful catalyst that elven soldiers carry on their persons to use in case they need to perform healing spells in the middle of a fight.”

Callum tossed back the LunarHeart flower and watched as Rayla continued to talk.

“There are two immensely powerful spells with this flower, moontears and healing light. The first spell is used to quickly heal wounds on another person, and healing light is used on yourself if you are badly hurt. Moontears is actually the spell I used on you to save your life.”

Callum smiled as he thought of, Rayla going out of her way to save a stranger’s life.

“The flower itself will only allow for one use of each spell on average, with a rune. If one were to use their own mana to cast the spell, the flower may only last one use and after the use, the flower will fall to the earth and plant itself.”

Callum stood up amazed at the thought of a magic plant planting itself and growing repeatedly. There was also a thought that made Callum chuckle as he thought about the flower trying to water itself.

Callum cleared his thoughts and focused back onto his teacher to listen in more.

“As I will not be able to watch over you today because I have important things to do today, I will let you borrow the seed and you can practice in my room.”

Callum bunched his eyebrows in confusion as she was going to leave him to his own devices and attempt magic.

“Rayla, question, if I am to do the spell shouldn’t I have you teach me the rune so I can try casting?”

Rayla shook her head and simply stated.

“To do either casting you need to have the ability to use mana, and humans can’t do magic cause they were born without mana. So, if you use the words the spell should activate. “

Callum grew disheartened at her blatantly calling him out like that before he posed his next question.

“These spells heal wounds, right? I don’t think it would be wise to hurt myself to test it.”

Rayla walked past Callum and motioned him to follow speaking as she walked.

“Even if there is not target to heal, the seed will consume the mana and wilt and die, so if the seed falls then you know that you can cast the spell.”

Callum slinked slowly behind Rayla until they reached the door and she handed the flower to him and pushed him in to the room.

“I’ll be back later, try not to tire yourself too much , **mage!” ******

********

********

Rayla chuckled as she closed the door and locked it laughing down the hallway.

Callum stood quietly in the room with the flower in his hand and looked down to his feet. Although he was extremely happy that Rayla indulged his desire to see magic work, she did not have to knock him down several pegs.

_I’ll show her ___

The thought arose from Callum and he took the flower to the middle of the room and sat staring at it in his hand.

Callum shouted his heart out between “Moontears” and “Healinglight”, but nothing happened. The more he tried to more agitated he became as he slowly tired himself out and chunked the flower towards the wall.

Callum pulled his legs to his chest and sat in the middle of the room growing sadder by the second thinking about Rayla being right in his inability to use magic.

He wanted to use magic so badly that he would do anything to get the chance.

Then the thought hit Callum, the voice was talking about his gift and his greed, the whole conversation was confusing Callum still, but he walked over and grabbed the flower.

Callum closed his eyes and held the flower with both hands and thought about the voice’s words hoping that he could grasp at anything to cast magic.

He slowly opened his eyes and felt a weird sensation running through him, he looked down at his hands and saw white specks falling onto his hands. His mind was running rampant telling him to be afraid and stop doing whatever he is doing, yet his heart kept him going.

In those few moments of conflict between his mind and body, he wrapped his hands around the flower, and he spoke the simple words to cast the spell.

“Moontears…”

He looked back at his hand and saw no white specks falling onto them, and he opened his hands.

His mouth fell open to see that the flower budded and revealed an opal colored seed in the middle of the petals. The seed itself rolled out of Callum’s grasp and fell onto the floor and started to plant itself into the wooden floor.

Callum grew a gigantic grin as he started shadow boxing the air and jumping around yelling in his head as he casted a spell.

“Take that Rayla! don’t tell me I can’t…”

Callum was cut off as a creaking noise erupted in the spot where the seed dug itself into. The spot itself was glowing white and in only a few moments a small branch emerged and several LunarHeart plants emerged on the edges of the branching limbs of the small tree.

Although Callum was happy about his success, it was immediately shut down by the sight of more small trees with even more plants sprouting around the room.

The only plausible thought that hit Callum in those moments as more and more plants rose was.

“Oh, fuck me…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to throw this out here and speak my mind, but i think the use of mana is a unique way to handle magic even if runes are available. In my mind, mana is a limit of magic a person can use, otherwise Callum wold cast infinite fulminus spells and live his life without fear.
> 
> NAY I SAY 
> 
> Also i did enjoy trying to come up with the second spell name and lemme tell you, that took alot longer than it took to think about what to type up in the chapter.


	5. Royal Problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problems keep stacking up against Rayla and she wants to handle them, but they will be far more out of her control to completely resolve them.

# Chapter 5: Royal Problems

Rayla left her bedroom locking the door behind her laughing at the joke she made about the human. She continued down the hall to head down her stairs to leave her house as she had some business to attend to with the royal family today.

Yet something kept nagging at her about how she talked to Callum about magic even though all he did was show her complete respect. Rayla really hopped that Callum understood that she was teasing him and even if she was right about humans being unable to do magic, she still felt a pang in her heart for wronging him.

Her mind focused back to her task at hand as she locked the door to her family home and proceeded to head to the royal family’s castle.

The castle itself was for more elaborate than the elven rich buildings dotting the landscape in the forest that she lived, and it scaled insanely high as it even connected to some of the trees surrounding it. The idea was that only the royal family could access the canopies that were connected to the castle as they knew the only entrances within the rooms.

Long ago, the trees used to be disconnected because of enemies scaling the trees and entering through secret entrances and evidently came to be a big problem. At some time though, Rayla cannot remember when the royal family reconnected themselves to the trees, but she can imagine it was significantly long after the war.

Her family had huge ties with the royal family long before the great war as advisors and powerful protectors which earned the family a lifelong title amongst the queen and king. Rayla’s family has always been apart of the royal guard and that why it was such a necessity to join because she feels that it is her continued birthright.

Rayla sighed thinking repeatedly about her being rejected at even an attempt at the royal selection…but clapped her hands to her face to forget those sad memories.

Although Rayla was not a royal guard, she continued to serve the family by being a continued best friend to the princess. Princess Xeerna, she was a complete stickler for upholding the royal fantasy. Her ideas of ruling the kingdom consisted of ones were everyone in her kingdom would wear the most extravagant clothes for everyday galas at her home.

Rayla sighed again thinking how little she enjoys being in anything less than breathable for her to draw her blades in and fight with.

Rayla was not expected to be Xeerna’s friend but even at a young age Rayla felt her sense of duty and became her closest friend only out desire to be helpful. That may in some cases continue to be the truth, but Rayla has grown to not hate Xeerna and her incessant need to make anyone look amazing even if they are doing simple gardening.

“Hello there Rayla, are you here to see the princess?”

Rayla looked up to face a tall elven guard and nodded to him to allow her passage as she headed through the courtyard to see her friend.

Rayla always knew where to find Xeerna this early in the morning as she was always fiddling with her fabrics and dresses on the side of the stables by the fountain in the courtyard. For some reason, when she was out of earshot of her mother, she could always get more work done on her dresses without being hounded to be more respectable.

Within moments Rayla's statement stood true and she strolled over to see Xeerna hastily preparing her gala dresses.

“I thought you said those dresses were prefect…the last three times you redid them?” Rayla smirked over to Xeerna as she sat next to her.

Xeerna stopped dead in her tracks as she turned over to Rayla and threw her arms around Rayla so affectionately and started sobbing on her.

“Oh, Rayla please you need to help me everything is in shambles!!”

Rayla pried her friend from her and put her hands on Xeerna’s shoulders to calm her down before she got too riled up in whatever she was rambling about.

Xeerna stopped sobbing and nodded her head in thanks to Rayla and continued to explain her problem.

“Mother tells me of royal suitors coming from the other elven nations and I must pick one of them to marry.”

Rayla looks at her friend in such disbelief and starts laughing.

“Then pick one, and be done with it, its not like you actually need to love them, it’s all politics anyway.”

Xeerna stood up and backed away from the laughing Rayla and felt her whole being crashing down beside her. Before she decided to start crying again, Rayla noticed a twinkle appear in Xeerna’s eyes and the fancy-looking girl started to race towards Rayla and grabbed her hands in her own.

“Oh, dear me Rayla, I forgot, you know nothing in the matters of the heart, only your…swords.”

Xeerna was exaggerating the word _swords _as she leaned onto the bench and draped one of her arms over herself to show her fainting at the thought.__

Rayla stopped laughing cause when she did think about it, _she only had one or two other people she had feelings for, but they were deterred by the idea of her being a model warrior _. So often Rayla decided to just forget she could fall in love with someone because no one wanted anything to do with someone in her position.__

With a few giggles and laughs both the women return to their original moments and continued to talk.

“So why are you so nervous Xeerna?”

Xeerna sighed as she continued sewing her dresses to make them more extravagant (if that was even possible).

“Mother wants me to marry someone of her choosing regardless of the multiple suitors coming to the kingdom, I think she is hellbent on getting me to marry some prince from the sunfire kingdom.”

Rayla sat and thought about it _but why would the sunfire elves want to become so involved with the moonshadow elves? The idea was creative to say in the least, thinking that two complete opposites can unite and become stronger. Yet the tensions of them being overly headstrong and prideful would conflict with the ideals of the moon _.__

“Is there perhaps any reason you can’t give the mysterious elf a moments glance before you shrug them off as one of your mother’s lackeys?”

Rayla’s voice was calm and respectful as she talked but filled with concerned as she was talking to her friend.

Xeerna dropped her dress and leaned her head over to Rayla’s shoulder and slouched into it.

“Oh Rayla, I wish I could make my own decisions when it come to matters of the heart, at least then I wouldn’t complain so much…that’s why I envy you.”

Rayla chuckled to her approval and simply ran her free hand through Xeerna’s light brown hair and twirled the tips in her fingers.

“I wouldn’t want to be either sometimes, I’ve given up on love long ago, and I don’t think even a preset lover would get me to change my mind.”

Rayla and Xeerna sat in silence for some time thinking about what she said, and it was not that she gave up on love, but she gave up on love being something she can obtain easily. Rayla’s sense of honor was more important for her than a man’s attempts at courting her. Yet why did these stupid thoughts of Callum smiling at her without judging her role in life in the slightest bug her to no extent. She knew when she got back home, Rayla would have to formally apologize to Callum for her behavior.

\--------------------------------------------------------

The day quickly flew by as Rayla was assisting Xeerna in carrying her dozens of dresses and sewing items back to her bedroom. The two talked about their lives and Rayla knew Xeerna made a sport of this all and liked to one up her friend.

Rayla grew smug at the thought of having something that Xeerna would never be able to top in her lifetime. Yet she had to keep quiet due to the idea of her own lifetime being forfeit at revealing it.

“Say Rayla, I heard from some guards that you took in a wounded elf the other day and I wanted to ask about him…or her?”

Rayla looked over shocked to see a smug look crossing her friends face.

“Where did they see that?”

Xeerna shrugged and continued putting away her dresses as she talked.

“Some guards saw you carrying an elf from the southern forest and brought them to your house and quite sometime later you left to return your armor to Serah I imagine.”

Rayla winced at the accusation, yet all of it was true except for the elf part, and that honestly scared Rayla more than anything. The fact Xeerna was a scatter-brained, fancy girl, did not outweigh the fact she was a dominant force to be reckoned with. Xeerna may have looked like a bird in a gilded cage, but she was someone you did not want to enrage.

Xeerna spoke up to reconnect with Rayla.

“So, when do I get to see them? To thank them for putting up with such a “friendly” encounter from **my **Rayla.”****

********

********

Rayla felt her neck heat up a bit for being caught out on such a limb that she grew a little angry and slapped the back of Xeerna’s head.

Of course, if anyone struck royalty, they would have been executed and disgraced for the rest of the ages, yet Rayla was given the option by Xeerna’s mother because even she knew how her daughter could be a nosey one.

Rayla wanted more than anything to not talk about Callum, but the fact that Xeerna brought it up meant that Rayla could not escape from the barrage of questions.

Xeerna was relentless in her endeavor but to no surprise, Rayla was keeping her walls up and only answered briefly and without hesitation to stop this torrent of questions. Eventually, Xeerna gave up and slinked onto her bed to show that she had been defeated. That was until she turned her head to face Rayla with a devilish grin and asked one more question.

“Does this mysterious fellow like you romantically?”

Rayla looked at her and quickly disagreed with the comment before Xeerna broke out into an uproar.

“SO, IT IS A GUY! I KNEW YOU’D FINALLY FIND SOMEONE!”

Xeerna playfully teared up repeating congratulations to Rayla as she tried to dismiss the comment. Yet Rayla hated herself for falling ploy to her schemes and realized that she let one slip and it was her downfall. The sad part about all of this, was Rayla knew that she would be here for a lot longer hearing Xeerna’s attempts at figuring the guy out.

\-----------------------------------------------------

It was sometime after sunset as Rayla departed Xeerna’s company and went home to deal with yet another problem. It was another day that she wanted to go home and fall into an endless coma and be done with all the craziness.

Sadly, Rayla knew that she needs to apologize to Callum for her behavior and incase he did not know she was teasing him. Then the words from her friend went on a trip in her head cause she started to think about it.

_Does Callum like me? I doubt its romantically because he does not know me, and if anything, he knows that elves hate humans…yet why am I so curious to his position about me _?__

Rayla disregarded those thoughts as she continued home to see how Callum was doing on his magic training even though she knew the answer.

As she walked up the stairs to her home, she took a moment to really think about how she wants to apologize to Callum. Rayla was not one for apologizing that much but she made sure she spoke her mind when she had to. In the end Rayla decided to wing it and at least owed him the courtesy of not sounding like an automaton.

Rayla walked to her room and before she could insert her key into the slot, she could hear Callum yelling something, he sounded like he was in…distress!

Rayla unlocked the door and tried to burst through the door and ended up faceplanting into the door and rearing backwards.

A sharp pain was reverberating in the spot of her face that collided with the door and she tried again but opened the door slowly as far as it would go. The door opened barely enough for her to fit into. Rayla slipped through the crack and instantly came into view of hundreds of LunarHeart flowers growing across the floor of her bedroom.

The amount was too many to count as Rayla could not even see the floor anymore yet alone Callum.

“Callum! Where are you? What the ‘ell happened ‘er?”

Rayla scanned the room to find a missing human somewhere within it. That was until Callum emerged from a cluster of flowers and propped himself up on them nonchalantly.

“Oh, hey Rayla, glad to see you home, I just have some good news for you and bad news for you…how would you like it?”

Rayla became agitated and yelled at him.

“Just tell me what is going on here?”

She looked to see Callum trying to stand up straight to speak but looked permanently lopsided as he was standing on the flowers.

“Well good news is, I can cast magic…the bad news is, when the seed fell on the floor it started sprouting a lot more plants and I tried to uproot them but they won’t stop growing.”

Rayla looked around as she grabbed her blades from behind her and started slicing through the brush as she made her way to her personal belongings. With every slash Rayla kept thinking not about how angry at Callum for letting this happen but the fact that he was able to do magic.

In a couple more slashes she reached her chest and threw it open and reached towards the bottom to reveal a necklace with the same opal color of the seed and crushed in and threw it into the air.

“Temporalis”

The sounds of plants continuing to grow stopped and even started decaying and shriveling up. The only things that remained was hundreds and hundreds of LunarHeart flowers laying on the ground ready to be used.

Rayla closed her chest and sat on top of it examining the room and saw a more than relieved Callum laying on a giant pile of flowers.

“Callum” Rayla looked over to Callum with a less than cheerful voice.

She saw the human look over at her hesitantly and saw him nervously smile at her.

“Congrats on passing the Novice Magic Training course.”

Rayla saw Callum beaming so much that she was able to see that same damn smile that threw her through a loop. She did not particularly hate the sight of it, but she had so many thoughts going through her head that she was not sure how to begin.

The only thought voicing itself was the idea of Rayla figuring out what to do with a gigantic supply of flowers and a newly acquired human that can-do magic. That was a conundrum that she would leave for tomorrow’s rayla. As she felt a surge of drowsiness hit her, Rayla fell asleep sitting up and couldn’t quite remember when she felt such warmth, but it wasn’t too long after that she felt something warm wrap around her and that made her smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Rayla chapter, and with that comes with me trying to come out with more names to handle the chapter.
> 
> Somewhere in my gut i know that with more chapters i will have to come with more names and that will be sooooooo much fun. Luckily for me, i will start replicating GoT and killing people off if that makes it easier for me to remember.
> 
> Jk , i doubt it as i am someone who keeps a list of people i come up with for stories.
> 
> Please feel free to comment on these about anything cause any kind of comment makes me happy....besides the bad ones....obviously


	6. Walking the Branching Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rayla takes a trip with Serah, yet this trip is too much to handle. Rayla will be tested and she may not pass.

# Chapter 6: Walking the Branching Paths

Rayla’s mind was growing impatient, the idea of dealing with a human was a lot on its own, but the fact he could cast magic. That was beyond her comprehension and it would only get more challenging for her as she continued to hide Callum.

Rayla had spent more than half of her day after waking up making several trips to Serah’s family store to sell the extreme abundance of LunarHeart flowers that Callum grew the day before.

Aside from carrying the flowers back and forth between her room and the middle of town which was a good hour both ways. Rayla was able to make a considerable amount of money from selling the flowers, of course she had to come up with a story how she ended up with so many. The story strayed every time she told it but Rayla got people to understand that she poured all her mana into the spell one day and this was the result.

Technically, she was not stretching the truth, she just fibbed about the caster.

Rayla was completely exhausted from the trips as she took close to five trips altogether and that alone wiped her out.

Sadly, Rayla needed to talk to Serah about her plans to meet up in the southern woods when the sun started to set. Serah got an idea about taking a group of friends into the southern forest and traveling to the Moonlight Glades.

The glades were just a vast open area beyond the southern forest that was home to the most beautiful scenery. Waterfalls of cascading light and animals gracefully living and frolicking in the tall grass. Rayla herself has not been to the glades since she was quite young, and it did take quite some time to reach it.

Rayla knew that she was tagging along to be a simple reprieve in conversations among other elven couples attending the trip. The thought made her gag in her mind as she thought about how she would have to deal with lovestruck couples for god knows how long.

The problems kept stacking up as Rayla started to get worried about how this trip is going to affect Callum. Callum would end up being alone in her room for a little more than a day and unless she brought him a stockpile of food, he would be having a hard time surviving up there.

The thought of him alone gave her flashbacks to the exorbitant number of flowers he had grown the night before.

Rayla chuckled to herself as she thought about the night in a different perspective. She knew of men courting women with flowers, but Callum put all the men in the world to shame with the flowers he inadvertently gave her.

The thoughts of understanding Callum confused Rayla a bit too much for her taste and she was not quite sure if she wanted to continue worrying or just forget about it and move on.

In the back of her mind, as much as Rayla wanted to strike last night as a freak occurrence, she held onto the memory with a fondness that she was not sure she was capable of.

A giant grin rose over her face as she reminisced but was broken from her trance by Serah throwing an arm over Rayla’s shoulder.

“You ready for the trip? Its going to be so much fun, just like when we were kids.”

Rayla looked at her friend with a less than approving face as she told her.

“When we were younger, we didn’t have boyfriends and makeout sessions.”

Serah started to laugh at the comment and dragged Rayla towards the upstairs of the shop to enter her room.

Rayla walked into the room and she felt that the place honestly did not change all that much since they were kids. The room was girly and filled with clothes everywhere. Aside from the royal guard outfit hanging on a door, and books filled with techniques about how to kiss someone, the room was the same.

“Rayla listen, I know you aren’t particular with finding a mate, but I want to help…which is why I’m inviting Nemuus.”

Those words sent a chill straight down Rayla’s back and she revolted at the thought of seeing him.

Nemuus was an over-confident moonshadow elf that was not too bright in anything besides his ability to charm women. There was nothing appealing about him, he had a bunch of runes on his head which is not bad. However, he was bald and had an obnoxious tendency to laugh at his own pick-up lines.

Serah spoke up in defense of the elf she tried to set Rayla up with.

“Listen I know Neemus is the worst first pick in men for you, but he is an accomplished elf with a lot of money and he’s always had an eye for you.”

Rayla grew tired of this talk as this was the worst thing she hated about courting. The idea that one of the parts needs to be financially stable and that will in turn allow both in the party to live a happy life.

Rayla herself was not poor or rich, but she never felt the need to grasp at those with more money to better herself. The way she saw it, if she wanted to better herself than she would train her body and mind to become what she desired.

Yet it was her nature to be there for her friends even if she had to struggle through the entire experience. Rayla was fond of her friendship with Serah and wanted nothing more than to see Serah happy.

That was most likely Rayla’s biggest downfall as she always wanted to protect others, and her own ideals became second to her friends' wellbeing.

Rayla sighed as she looked back over to Serah attempting to give puppy dog eyes to persuade her friend.

“Fine, but if he makes me feel uncomfortable in any way, I’m going to kill him, and you will stay quiet about the whole thing.”

Serah smiled and shook her head up and down viciously and went straight to her closet and started displaying clothes that she thought she would look good in.

Rayla sat and smiled giving a nod or quick answer when shown a dress, but she was mostly just trying to think about how to fill Callum in on the details.

\----------------------------------------

The sun was getting ready to start setting but before the meet up was scheduled, Rayla needed to head home to grab her supplies and to see Callum. The walk back to her home was a solemn one but allowed Rayla to clear her head and prepare herself for the night ahead.

Rayla walked up her stairs and immediately saw Ethari leaving the home carrying the parcel she dropped off the day before.

Ethari noticed Rayla and gave a quick smile before placing the parcel down and embraced Rayla in a tight hug.

“What’s going on Ethari, its been a while since you’ve hugged me like this?”

Rayla tried to say between breathes as Ethari was hugging the life out of her, he soon let her go and began to say.

“I’m off to my shop, and I’ll be there for some time. We won’t see each other until you get back, I imagine but…”

Ethari paused as he grabbed Rayla’s shoulders firmly and continued.

“…please be careful on your trip tonight, strange occurrences have been happening in the forests and I couldn’t imagine losing you.”

Rayla placed her hands around Ethari’s to hold them gently and she pulled him back into a hug.

“I will, and if anything tries to hurt me out there, then they are in for a world of hurt.”

Rayla pulled back smiling which made Ethari reciprocate it and they both said their goodbyes and Rayla went inside her home.

Her bedroom came into view in a few moments as Rayla slipped in and saw Callum sprawled out on the floor with a bunch of books around him open to random pages.

“What are you reading there Callum?”

Rayla asked as Callum looked over to her and just slapped his head to the floor in defeat. He mumbled against the ground, which made Rayla get closer to hear him.

“I wanted to keep myself preoccupied, but I ran into a major problem…and that problem is I can’t read your elven text.”

Rayla looked confused and felt her head go lopsided as she stared at Callum. She was trying to put the pieces together as time went on, but she got more and more confused.

_Why can’t Callum read those books, technically this writing is a universal staple. It isn’t considered elven writing, it’s a common writing practice among the races. ___

__“Callum, there is no such thing as elven writing, so I’m confused why you can’t read it.”_ _

__Rayla saw Callum sit up and look at her like she just spoke some forbidden death chant that would kill him._ _

__Callum’s mouth attempted to open and speak, but just gasps and eventually he spoke with a skeptical face._ _

__“Wait wait wait…You don’t think I was telling the truth about me not being from this world huh?”_ _

__Rayla feigned ignorance as Callum was glaring into her soul._ _

__“Callum listen, I’m not one hundred percent sure about everything in regard to your situation, and its true you’re not like a normal human, but its pretty far out there to assume you’re a from another world.”_ _

__Rayla looked over to see Callum look down at the floor and avoided eye contact with Rayla entirely._ _

__“Look Callum I’m sorry I just…”_ _

__Callum cut her off by standing up and walking over to his cramped closest and shut himself in it._ _

__Rayla felt sorry for blatantly neglecting his trust, but she wanted an answer that could be backed up, and the business about Callum being from another world was fantasy at most._ _

__Rayla grabbed her clothes she had packed up for her trip and walked over to the closet and placed a hand on it._ _

__“Listen Callum, I won’t be back until tomorrow night, so please try to stay here. If you get hungry, then wait till mid-day and then check the kitchen downstairs. No one will be home tomorrow so it’s safe, I promise.”_ _

__Rayla left her hand on the closet door waiting for a response but was just met with silence. She removed her hand and opened her bedroom door to leave, and just before she locked the door, Rayla looked back towards the closet to see any movement._ _

__There was still just silence, and that saddened Rayla as she locked her bedroom and proceeded outside to meet up with the group._ _

____

__

\--------------------------------------------------------

The group met up by the edge of the southern forest and waited for everyone to collect themselves before the trip began. The group was six elves in total and among them was Serah and her boyfriend, another couple probably a friend of Serah’s and Rayla and…Nemuus.

Rayla was walking in the back of the group as she witnessed her friend being completely enthralled by her mate and a loud elf pestering the other couple.

Nemuus was being overly pushy as he was trying to ask the male elf about any tips to land chicks as the female elf groaned in disapproval at the conversation.

Rayla was just beginning her trip and already wanted to run Nemuus through with her blades and enjoy the next day of relaxation.

A small smile crept onto her face for a single moment until Nemuus looked towards Rayla and smiled as he lunged over to her.

“Rayla my dear moon flower, you shine so bright, but when will you join me so we can shine bright together?”

Rayla gagged as she heard that cheese line come from Nemuus, especially hearing him slur his words together and had to dodge his spit as he talked.

“Nemuus, get this through your thick, bald head…as long as you use the same lines and sleazy tactics with every girl in the clan, then I will not see you as a living thing.”

Nemuus grabbed his heart and stumbled over himself as he spoke.

“Oh, how you pierce the heart so…I only want you to be my bride Rayla, but if I must abandon all other women to do so then you have my word!”

Rayla cocked an eye as she looked at the loud of crap coming out of his mouth. She thought back to the other four times he told her the same excuse, just to watch him sleaze over to another woman a moment later to ask for her hand in marriage.

“Nemuus, give me space or ill make it by reintroducing you to my closest friends.”

Rayla signaled to her back as Nemuus knew instantly by the reference of her blades and raised his hands and ran back to the front of the group.

Rayla felt proud of herself by the way she handled Nemuus, especially since the normal ways she handles him is by beating him to a pulp.

The thought of destroying him did make Rayla’s mood better until the trees around her started to sway and the ground shook beneath her.

“WAIT!” Rayla yelled to the group as the ground continued to rumble.

The group stopped in their tracks and fell silent to the noises approaching them from the darkness of the forest. The stomping grew louder and the sounds of branches snapping repeatedly filled the air.

Rayla sprinted to the group and unlatched her blades from their holsters and unsheathed the blades ready to meet whatever is making the noise.

The group just sat in silence as the noises grew louder, the moments the stood still felt unending as the noises never quite met them.

That was until the noises stopped entirely but the same could be the same for Rayla, as her heart dropped from her chest as she noticed the creature making the commotion.

It was tree spirit, but it was not how they would normally look. Tree spirits were passive creatures that protected smaller animals from large predators, and they were made entirely of tree barks and branches. Yet this spirit was withering away, and a strange green ooze fell from its body with every sway of its body.

Rayla saw the way the eyes of the spirit stared at the group, the same way it would if it wanted to kill off a predator.

Rayla spoke up as she snapped out of her fear of the hulking creature resuming its path over to them.

“Run to the glades everyone, ill hold it off to give us enough time to flee.”

The group did not waste any time as the picked up the pace and darted in the other direction not looking back at all. That said, Rayla turned to see that one elf was sitting on the ground filled with fear.

“Nemuus you have to run, if you don’t you will actually die here, and I don’t want you to die!”

Rayla yelled back to Nemuus in an attempt to break him from his panicked state, but to no avail.

“Rayla, we have to run, we can fight a spirit, it will kill us and then we can’t get married.”

Even in the middle of a life or death situation, Rayla gagged at the thought of that, and decided to set him straight once and for all.

“Nemuus, I will never marry you; I will never date you, and I will never be your friend…”

Rayla paused as she saw Nemuus look away from her and stare at the ground.

“…but I will not let you die here, and that I can promise you.”

Rayla stared at Nemuus and prayed that she at least got through to him in some sort of capacity, and to her delight Nemuus stood up and yelled to her.

“Don’t you dare die; I will make you mine and I won’t take no for an answer!!”

Nemuus turned around and ran off in the direction of the group leaving the tree spirit alone with Rayla.

\-----------------------------------------------------

The tree spirit lumbered over to Rayla with such a robotic stance that it looked so unnatural to be walking at all.

Rayla readied her blades as the spirit started to swing its arms to kill its elven opponent. She knew if any attack hit her, she would be snuffed out in an instant as tree spirits could fight against a dragonling with no problems.

Each attack was dodged and evaded, but the environment was becoming worse and worse and the spirit tore down trees and shattered boulders in the fight. Rayla was staying far ahead of the spirt without any lapse in her own attempts at staying alive. Yet Rayla grew weary at thinking on how to stop the spirit, because even if she were to avoid it and withdraw. Rayla knew it would wonder into town and innocent people would be hurt.

Rayla cursed herself at not being strong enough to destroy the creature because at most she could chip at it with this tooth picks she calls weapons.

Her mind was starting to stray as she lost her footing and slipped into a roll to recover.

Sadly, the tree spirit swung and hit a tree that was launched towards Rayla and under the enormous pressure she was caught under the tree.

The impact knocked the air out of Rayla, and she felt her ribs breaking from the attack and started to cough of blood. Rayla’s vision was getting blurry as she tried to keep consciousness but was unable to breath under the weight of the tree.

The tree spirt was lumbering towards the trapped elf with a corrupted look of bloodlust unwavering in its blood-red eyes.

Rayla was struggling so much to remove the tree…struggle to breathe…struggling to live.

_No not here, I’m not done fighting, I can’t give up after all this. ___

Rayla’s thoughts repeating in her head as she clawed at the tree only to bruise and bloody her own hands.

The tree spirit getting closer and with every step, Rayla struggled harder and harder.

That was until the spirit stopped in its tracks and looked around him.

Rayla tried so hard to get up but the more she tried the more her hands bled and the more she coughed her own blood onto the floor of the forest.

She stopped under the pain and inability to breath, watching her arms drop to her side and felt her vision blacking out.

Rayla felt her life flashing before her eyes and tears formed wanting to see her parents once more before she died.

Yet her only thought she could hear being voiced in her head was one not about her parents at all.

_I’m sorry Callum for not believing you, I’m sorry for being a terrible person to you, and I’m sorry for leaving you._

Those words hurt her more than any pain as she started to cry blood at the thought and felt herself lose consciousness.

Rayla’s mind was falling apart and she just wanted to live, that is all she wanted, was to live…

___**“STORM BRINGER” ******__ _

Rayla heard a familiar voice in the distance and saw several giant flashes of light strike the tree spirt and ignite its body as it wailed in agony.

Rayla focused herself as she looked beyond the tree line and saw a person, standing with their left arm surrounded by blue lighting and left eye pulsating with blue lights.

She felt her body giving up and heard another phrase from the person, but it was muffled, along with everything else in the forest. Rayla felt her head fall onto the tree and all she remembers saying was…

“Callum…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can not tell you all how long i procrastinated this chapter. 
> 
> I honestly dont even know why as i enjoyed writing this one so much and i cant wait to continue from here.
> 
> Also, i want to say that as i already had most of this chapter written as soon as i posted the last one, im glad so many people as well as myself thought of the flower scene as being a good moment for the two lovelies.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the kind words and reading my content, this makes me enjoy waking up in the morning.


	7. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Callum deals with his own problems , and becomes involved in a fight of life and death.

# Chapter 7: Awakening

Callum lays in his closet facing the wall as he hears Rayla walk out the room to head on her trip. The door locks and Callum let out a sigh and talks to himself.

“Shit, what’s wrong with me? Why am I acting like a spoiled kid? I mean If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t believe me either I guess…”

His face grew sad at the way he handled the situation and opened the closet door with one hand and rolled out of the space like a ball till he sprawled back out onto the floor.

Callum felt bad for not being upfront about his feelings, because normally he is able to say what is on his mind even if he sounds like a babbling idiot.

The more Callum thought about Rayla the more his mind started to wonder the room, the same room he has been in for the past couple of days.

At first, he thought he was in a weird dungeon, but the more time he spent inside the more Callum could see that Rayla took pride in herself and the gear she maintained in the room.

Each weapon was finely sharpened and had a small shine to them in the light of the room and Callum was curious just how much time she spent on the immense number of weapons in the room.

Callum wishes he as passionate as Rayla was about a lot of things but the only thing he could comfortably say he is good at is drawing. Yet he has not had the chance to draw because everything in this room as far as paper goes is filled with strange text or pictures of fighting styles.

His mind fell back towards memories of his life before coming to this world.

Callum was just an ordinary college student who took some courses in design so he could further his enjoyment of art. It was going swimmingly, and Callum enjoyed school for once in his life, yet fate had to change that.

He has had some time to think about the events leading up to the day everything was destroyed. Callum still could not put a name to the assailant, but he could slowly start to remember the moments the lighting hit around him and the destruction the followed.

The day he meant to spend with his parents was one filled with crumbling buildings and blood-curdling screams filling the air and…

“Rayla are you still home? Oh, the door is locked, I guess not, let us slip this under here for when she gets back.”

Callum slowly dragged his head over to the door to see a weird piece of paper being slid under the door and hearing the lady’s voice leaving and growing faint.

Callum used his arms to drag himself closer to the piece of paper and when he reached it, he picked it up and lifted it over his head as he rolled on his back.

His face grew confused as he looked at the paper and saw a bunch of scribble and a big picture of a creature with red lettering under it.

Normally Callum would assume that anything with red lettering was a bad thing, but he was in a whole other world and could not assume that from his understanding alone.

Callum looked to the bottom right of the page and saw a map of the city and stood up heading over to the window. He wanted to see if he could pinpoint his location from cross checking the map and his own surroundings.

Callum looked out the window and saw a giant square area with fountains and greenery and looked at his map to see that he was relatively close to the southern patch of woods.

He sighed as he saw a lot more houses nearby and the map was not pinpointing his location but at least he knew a little of his place.

The thought soon hit Callum as he remembered that Rayla said that she found him in the southern forest and that is where she was headed through for her trip.

_Weird how Rayla was the one to find me in that forest even when many people go through that for trips and whatnot. ___

__Callum kept looking back to the creature on the paper and saw the red letters and felt a pang in his stomach as he tried to decipher the meaning._ _

__He grew more unsteady with his uncertainty and looked out over to the forest as he slid his back against the wall and let worry fill his mind._ _

____

____

\----------------------------------------------------------

“Wake up Callum! Now is not the time to be sleeping!”

The disembodied voice was back and more than anything it was being pushy about what Callum could or could not do.

Callum slowly ripped his eyes open to look around the room and vaguely saw an image before moving through the room once more.

_Wait? _Callum’s thoughts fell silent as he looked back over to see an image of a person standing in the room with him.__

__“Who are you?”_ _

__Callum started speaking as he backed away from the apparition and felt fear creeping over him._ _

__The spirit closed the gap between them immediately and looked straight into Callum before speaking._ _

__“How many times do we have to go through this…I am your guardian spirit and I’ve been trying to help you become stronger, but you seem so keen on sleeping.”_ _

__Callum felt his jaw unhinge as the spirt spoke so casually to him._ _

__“Wait what do you mean, try to help me get stronger, the last time I checked you just felt the need to put me in harms way and teleport me to god knows where for no reason speaking vaguely about everything.”_ _

__The spirit looked at Callum with confusion before slapping his fist to the palm of his other hand in realization._ _

__“Oh, my bad, I tend to forget to show myself when I talk to people and that may have been the reason my conversations were cryptic.”_ _

__Callum felt his mind falling into a million pieces as he tried to fathom what exactly is going on. That was till the spirit spoke up again and tried to clue Callum in._ _

__“Long story short, I was assigned to assist the dragon prince and teach him to fight as he would need it in the upcoming times.”_ _

__Callum felt so confused at the mention of ‘dragon prince’ and ‘teaching him to fight’._ _

__“How can I learn to fight if I’m not able to use magic or weapons to defend myself, all I know is healing spells but that all.”_ _

__The spirit threw an arm over Callum nonchalantly and groaned about having to repeat himself._ _

__“Listen short stuff, you’re a unique creature that even the dragons of creation would want to be locked up for eternity. Sadly, a lifetime for you is not that long as you are only human. “_ _

__The spirit phased through Callum causing him to stumble slightly before looking to the spirit sitting on the chest._ _

__“You were born with a power to consume magic, a glutton for magic if you will, but its primary purpose is unlocking the decade involvement that others put in to learn a spell. Your glutton ability allows you to learn at an insanely fast pace and even learn brand new magic on the spot.”_ _

__Callum started staring more intently at the spirit talking about this power and it made him curious for sure, but nothing good came from being curious._ _

__“So, I can learn magic that not even people of this world know of?”_ _

__Callum spoke with uncertainty but eagerness to the answer from the spirt._ _

__The spirit shrugged his head as he looked away towards the window._ _

__“You can create new magic for sure, but until you can grow your strength, the range of spells you can learn is small. To create new magic, one needs to understand to connection to the primal sources and you are connected to only two right now.”_ _

__Callum walked over to the spirit and stood in front of it and wanted to continue the talk before it disappeared again._ _

__“What am I connected to?”_ _

__The spirit grinned and told him without hesitation._ _

__“I have no idea…”_ _

__The spirit broke out into a bubbly chuckle as Callum started to look like he got his lights knocked out._ _

__“Wait, if you’re my guardian spirit then you should know about me and that would include this?”_ _

__Callum speaking louder to the spirit to get him to stop laughing but quieting himself as he remembers there is other people here in Rayla’s home._ _

__“Listen Callum, as much as I want to give you all the answers and see you succeed, this is ‘your’ journey and that requires some work from you.”_ _

__Callum wanted to strangle the spirit with his bare hands but before the thought came to surface a voice came to the door._ _

__“Rayla are you home? I thought you were heading out on that trip with your friends tonight?”_ _

__Callum shuttered to think he let himself be discovered while talking to this…stupid…spirit. Callum viewed the room to see the spirit had disappeared and it was only the human causing a ruckus in a room that was supposed to be empty._ _

__Callum tried his best to hide in his closest but started to hear a key enter the door. Time was running out and Callum needed to find a place to hide as he needed to avoid a family of warriors._ _

__Options were limited as the closet was too far from him and he could not exactly hide under a bed that had no ‘under the bed’ because the bed frame protruded from the ground._ _

___The Window _____

___The thought raced to Callum as he grabbed a black cloak hanging on Rayla’s bedframe and threw it on himself and proceeded to throw his whole body out the window._ _ _

___In retrospect, it would’ve been smarter to cling onto the window and dangle on the outside, yet Callum took it to the extreme and flung himself out the window and barreled down the tree landing in a smaller tree further down._ _ _

___Pain was surging up his back as Callum clutched his back and held back a scream as he reminded himself to stay hidden._ _ _

___Callum covered his face with the cloak and lowered himself lower to the ground level of the city and landed on his legs, which buckled under the pressure and made him fall on his back._ _ _

___Callum regained his composure and searched the area to see if he was alone and he was not. For a city of people, the nighttime was filled with a surprisingly huge number of elves walking about. Callum grew scared at the thought of him being discovered and possibly being lynched or dropped from the top of the giant trees._ _ _

___The thought alone made Callum shiver in the displeasure of the idea and he refocused himself to move away from the elves._ _ _

___Options were limited to Callum as he found only two; the first being to head back to the home and try to scale the trunk to re enter the room, or head into the forest and wait till Rayla got back from her trip and go from there._ _ _

___Callum’s head was getting frantic as people got closer and closer to him, of course they were minding their own business, but Callum felt his anxiety spiking to unheard of levels._ _ _

___“Fine to the forest I go”, Callum spoke under his breath and started to run to the forest to conceal himself._ _ _

___The only problem with his plan was hiding out for a whole day in the forest that Rayla said has creatures of all varieties. The varieties are what scared Callum, and that alone gave him anxiety…but as he would soon remember, there is something else that goes bump in the night._ _ _

_____ _

_____ _

\---------------------------------------------------------------

Callum found himself passing through the woods as the night cloaked the once peaceful appeal of the forest, he found himself in a few days ago. The sounds of nothing worried Callum far more than the noises of the nocturnal creatures.

To his disapproval, Callum cursed at himself every time he snapped a branch under him that made a loud noise. If he was attempting to be a ninja then he failed, on the first branch out of six or seven other ones he broke.

After what seemed like hours of walking Callum sat down against a tree and pulled his cloak over his chest to act like a blanket.

Callum was tired and hungry, but most importantly, he was in pain as he was still recovering from the fall, he took to escape discovery.

His back was aching in pain as he tried to get comfortable on the tree and felt himself longing for his cramped but warm closet.

Callum wanted to go back home and sleep…yet the idea of him longing for Rayla’s home as if it was his own was confusing to him. The fact that he was a simple intruder in her home and slept hidden away for most of the day should have turned him away from the place. Yet he started to grow accustomed to the place and the girl in that room.

His mind raced to Rayla and all the moments they shared together, although some of them were bad, Callum enjoyed the time he spent just talking to her.

She used to look at him with such hatred but as the days went on, she opened up to him and that made Callum happy, but hopeful that they can at least get past this 'humans are monsters' stage in their life.

Those thoughts were interrupted when Callum felt the hair on the back of his neck rise and shifted around to see the cause.

Callum could see a dark aura permeating further in the woods and it was moving, the aura itself was like death…like the death Callum saw in his old world.

Fear was overcoming any rational thoughts that Callum had and he felt himself trying to hide from the distant aura and survive. Yet something was tugging at him making him want to start running, he was not sure if it was away or towards the creature.

Callum started to tremble under the pressure and tried to breathe but caught himself gasping erratically trying to let air into his body.

This world was getting too much for him to handle and he wanted to go home, he wanted to sleep in his bed, and he wanted most of all…to talk to Rayla again.

His hands stopped shaking and he stood up in the dark forest and moved himself around the tree he was using as cover. Callum desperately grabbed onto the memory of him and Rayla talking happily together, and he wanted to make sure they could meet again.

“Alright, I’m done being scared, I’m standing on my own…”

Callum yelled into the forest as he discarded his cloak and ran after the aura of death that once paralyzed him.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Callum ran after the creature, unable to formulate a plan on how to deal with it, perhaps he could drag it away from the forest and towards capable fighters.

The thoughts racing faster than his heart as he struggled to keep up his pace to encounter the creature.

Callum stopped in his tracks attempting to catch his breath, his ears beating with every second he stood still, but he wanted to keep going no matter what. That was until the sound of falling trees and yelling filled his ears. Callum could see that whatever this creature was, it was fighting someone.

Callum mantled over broken trees and came into view of a gargantuan creature that was made of branches and tree bark but reminded him of his memories when green ooze protruded from it.

The thoughts of the Lagarius the Dragon of the Void filled his head when he felt the aura of this creature and the way it lumbered about like it was not actually alive.

_Enough thinking Callum, I have to do something! ___

__Callum’s thoughts became louder to himself as he steeled himself to proceed to where the fight was breaking out._ _

__As he got closer, Callum saw the creature swinging wildly as it attempted to hit what looks like an elf and destroyed whatever was in its path._ _

__The elf was fighting...acutally more so evading the attacks with ease and kiting the creature around._ _

__Callum saw that the elf had the situation under control and elected to slip away to stay hidden. He slipped back towards some standing trees and started to walk away until he heard someone cry out._ _

__His swung around and he lunged towards the fight and saw that the elf was trapped under a tree. The creature was looking around him, standing in place and soon continued towards the captured elf._ _

__Callum’s heart was racing as he wanted to help but he could not he felt so useless. He wanted to jump in, but he could not take a swipe from the creature and live, he was only human._ _

__He looked to the elf and saw them struggling and trying to fight back against the opponent that instilled fear in Callum._ _

__Callum snapped out of it when he felt his mind thinking back to when he first met Rayla and even though she knew he was a stranger, she helped without second guessing._ _

__“I’m going to stand on my own…IM GOING TO FIGHT TO LIVE!”_ _

__Callum roared at the top of his lungs as his body started to surge in energy, his body became numb to the feeling as he heard crackling from his right arm. He looked at his arm and saw white runes tracing themselves from his shoulder ripping apart his sleeves and leading down to his hands. The runes met on his palm as the shapes of lightning bolts etched themselves on his hand._ _

__Callum saw as the runes lit up and a vibrant blue cloaked his arm and he felt power he never thought was possible._ _

__He did not know any spells that used lightning and he stared at the creature worrying if he would be able to stop it._ _

__Callum remembered the spirit saying that he could create his own magic if he knew the properties of it. He raised his arm, facing the creature and felt that he knew the very instant his body reacted from the idea of using a spell. That he could fight back, in his head, he thought about what to call his spell. Callum wanted to come up with a simple activator and be done with the creature and then he smiled._ _

__“STORM BRINGER”_ _

__Callum yelled and saw three balls of energy forming around his hand and he let them loose. The orbs launched themselves towards the creatures and made impact. The impact made no difference to the creature as the orbs disappeared, and then came three giants lightning bolts from above that ignited the creature._ _

__The creature wailed in agony at it being hit with the spell and Callum smiled at the way the spell felt to him and tried to make a new spell._ _

___I need a spell that can end this once and for all. _____

___Callum’s thoughts jumped from names of different ideas of spells that he could create until he came up with one._ _ _

___Callum yelled the spell name again and watched as it pierced the creature and set the creature completely ablaze and even sent a shockwave of wind throughout the forest._ _ _

___“Lightning Javelin”_ _ _

___The spell itself was incredibly fast that when he finished saying the word , the spell impacted the creature and the wind knocked trees over and even sent Callum backwards several feet._ _ _

___Disorientated, Callum got up to witness the destruction he just caused and promised himself to keep that spell locked away for a rainy day._ _ _

___His mind walked over to the creature crackling under the flames consuming its body and Callum snapped back to remember the elven warrior._ _ _

___He looked around the ashen forest and tried to see if he could find them through the debris flying in the air._ _ _

___Callum saw a body laying on a broken tree and ran over to see if they were alright._ _ _

___“Hey are you alright?”_ _ _

___Callum froze as he saw that the elven warrior was Rayla and she was propped over the tree lifeless._ _ _

___“Rayla! Rayla! Please wake up, come on stay with me.”_ _ _

___His words faltering as he saw Rayla not moving an inch to remove herself from the tree._ _ _

___Callum made a connection, maybe he could use moonlight healing magic without the catalyst. He felt unsure if he could do the spell without the flower but buckled down and tried anyway._ _ _

___Minutes were passing by as Callum tried with all his being to conjure up the chance to use magic to save Rayla, but he could not even try._ _ _

___“Rayla please…”_ _ _

___Callum’s eyes were filling with tears as he watched her lifeless body sitting there._ _ _

___“Ill get you back to Silvergroove, and I’ll get a flower and ill make sure you live, I promise.”_ _ _

___Callum felt his surge of energy emerge again on his arm and he shaped his hand in the form of a blade and strikes at the fallen tree._ _ _

___The tree broke in half as the pieces that connected with Callum’s hand ignited._ _ _

___Callum grabbed Rayla out of the rubble and lifted her arm over his shoulder and started to pull her towards the direction he came in._ _ _

_____ _

_____ _

\-----------------------------------------------

Callum was buckling under the weight of dragging Rayla through the forest and his only saving grace was the power going through him gave him more energy then he had prior to the fight.

He struggled to breathe, but he was adamant on getting Rayla back to the city. Callum had no idea where to grab a flower from without creating interactions. Yet his mind said to forget all that as he would even threaten a guard to give up their flower.

Callum was growing weaker from the continued use of this power and holding Rayla, but he was almost there, he knew it, he prayed that he was almost there.

Every chance Callum got to lift Rayla over a large root, he would double check to see if her pulse were still there. It was there but growing far fainter as the time went on.

His legs buckled and he fell face first on the ground dropping rayla next to him.

“Dammit, work you stupid legs, you’ve spent the last twenty years being useless…not today… I won’t give up today… NOT FUCKING TODAY!”

Callum struggled to raise himself up and picked Rayla back up and continued for the city.

His vision was starting to blur as he walked until he saw lights peaking from the tree line. Callum felt a rush of adrenaline and pushed for the city. His goal was made clear and he was going to see it through.

Callum entered the city as the morning sunrise came over the horizon and he could see elves leaving their homes.

Callum pulled Rayla to the large square area with fountains and gardens that he saw earlier. He laid her head softly on a bed of flowers and looked around him to see if he could see a LunarHeart flower around him to use.

His heart sank as there was no sight of the much-needed flowers, and so Callum got up and rushed over to a guard standing by idly talking to another.

Both guards were oblivious to Callum as he approached until he turned one around and demanded his flower.

“Please give me your LunarHeart flower, if you won’t hand it to me freely I will take it!”

Callum’s eyes lessened as he forced his power to come out and this frightened the guards until they dropped their weapons and the bags containing the seeds.

His body was feeling heavier than words can imagine, Callum tried to reach down to the ground to pick up the bag. He fell hitting his head on the ground, his body struggling with over exhaustion.

“Get up please, I’m running out of time, I need to get…up!”

Callum again rose and with him one of the bags with the flower. He struggled to walk over to the spot he left Rayla but made it before his legs gave out on him.

Callum pulled out the LunarHeart flower and laid it on Rayla and said with all the strength he had left.

"Moon tears!”

The flower lit up and a glowing green light appeared around Rayla and continued to stay. Callum could see the gashes on her body and even her bloodied hands repairing themselves.

Callum leaned forwards and placed his head on Rayla’s chest as he listened for a faster heartbeat.

Ba dum…ba dum…

Callum heard the heart beat a lot louder than he did earlier and he felt himself lean back on his arms.

“Finally, I’m sorry I didn’t help you sooner…Ray…”

Those words left his mouth as he fell backwards and fell unconscious.

His actions were noble to say in the least, but the fact a large group of terrified elves surrounding him saw this man threaten guards with magic made the situation more troublesome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was such a blast to write and now we are out of the preverbal frying pan and into the fire from here on out.
> 
> That you all for every comment and i cant wait to talk about it with you all.


	8. Ruined Relations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rayla can't stop the talk of the town from hurting her, even more so when she goes to find her missing human.

# Chapter 8: Ruined Relations

_Memories raced about the night fighting the tree spirit, the same scene playing repeatedly in Rayla’s head. The spirit trapped her under a tree, and she could only sit there and watch the monstrosity approach and before it gets too close the memory restarts. The same pain of her scratching at the tree to lift it from her body made Rayla wince in pain as the reoccurring memories showed no respite. The visions felt like they were close to reaching one hundred or more attempts and they scarred Rayla’s soul as they continued…_

**“Don’t do that! You know that if she wakes up and finds out that you kissed her in her sleep, she will gut you.”**

A familiar voice penetrating Rayla’s head as she could feel the effects of the memories and pain subsiding.

**“It only seems fitting that her soon to be mate Nemuus would awaken his bride from her long slumber.”**

Another voice echoed in her head as she tried to regain consciousness but the moment this voice talked Rayla felt her body shutter at the words that came out.

Rayla started to open her eyes almost too slowly as she started to make out a figure perching over her with his lips pouted close to her face. The first reaction was to punch the hell out of Nemuus but Rayla put her hand over Nemuus’ mouth and let out a breath she had no idea was being held in.

“Cut it out Nemuus, but if we aren’t still in the forest, I can imagine that we are safe.”

Rayla pushed Nemuus back and sat up in her bed and smiled fondly at the two elves accompanying her in her bedroom. Serah was sitting in a chair by the bed with a blanket over her shoulders and Nemuus was still standing near her with a shocked expression as he held his lips to kiss the air.

Rayla was happy to see her friends in such good spirits and even better condition, but her mind started to go haywire as she remembered her location. She started to converse with the two elves in her room nonchalantly as she tried to look towards the closet to see if Callum was hiding.

“How long was I out for?” Rayla mind trying to distract herself from freaking out with having to hide Callum from her friend and Neemus on the spot.

Serah got out of her chair and started to fold her blanket she had wrapped around her and answered Rayla.

“A little over a week, you took a quite a beating…honestly I’m still surprised you’re alive…no offense.”

Rayla saw Serah finishing her task and she was headed for the closet and the injured elf wanted to scream at the top of her lungs to not open the closet, but her friend beat her to the punch.

Serah opened the closet and simply laid the blanket on the floor by some pillows that were there for the supposedly hiding human in her house. Rayla’s eyes scrunched up immensely as she tried to piece together the missing human that was supposed to be in her room. That was until Serah spoke up that sent a chill down Rayla’s spine.

“I mean, I don’t think anyone has been able to survive a fight with a human and live to tell the tale.”

_Human?_ Rayla felt a wave of confusion wash over her as she tried to understand the weirdest conversation she’s ever had in her life.

“What do you mean, survive a fight with a human?  
Serah walked over to Rayla and held one of her hands and tried to be sympathetic without regards to the injured elf’s emotional state.

“That night when the tree spirit attacked, a large group of elves saw a human dragging your body and dumped you on the 1st queen’s memorial garden, which was disrespectful to begin with. Then the human went over to some guards and threatened their lives with some kind of weapon and stole their belongings. The weirdest thing was that he tried to cast some magic on you, and he collapsed.”

Rayla’s couldn’t stay focused on the story because she was trying to crosscheck her thoughts of the strange human and Callum being missing as well. She felt it maybe too coincidental but didn’t want to assume without all the facts. Serah was continuing to stammer on about the words she heard from the elves that were there that night.

“…they saw a cloaked figure that sunset apparently that jumped from your bedroom window and ran straight into the forest covering his face. Now he is being held for information by the royal guard and he is resisting to the point that he can barely even stay awake.”

Rayla felt her heart drop at the sound of that and tried to move out of bed to see if the words she heard are true.

Her movements were stopped when Nemuus threw his arms up to stop Rayla’s advances and started to tuck the blanket under her legs like a parent did for their young before he sat at the end of the bed.

“Listen Rayla, the fact you had to fight for your life against a corrupted tree spirit and then right after a human, rightfully gives you a chance to rest up. Your parents have been on leave from their posts till you recover. Even the queen gave her blessings as she felt at a lost for you having to deal with the piece of filth that is humanity.”

Those words strangely reacted with Rayla and she felt her mind thinking about Callum and her learning magic in her training room. The idea of humans being disgusting creatures of nature was embedded in her mind as well as all elvendom. Yet the idea of Callum being a monster made Rayla feel uneasy.

Rayla saw Nemuus inching towards her as her thoughts were trying to collect themselves. She dismissed him by knocking him off her bed with a swift kick from her leg even if it was covered in bedding.

The room filled in laughter as the other two elves chuckled now, but Rayla couldn’t join in as her thoughts of Callum and the mysterious human being connected. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t for a couple of days that Rayla was finally able to leave her room, but the entire time all that came up in conversation among friends and even family was coming face to face with the scum that is a human. The talk of the town was that this monster was going to kill Rayla or even try to cast some kind of hex that would make her his slave. Each time the human came up in any capacity, the preconception of his purpose in Silvergroove became far worse than anything one could imagine.

Rayla wasn’t going to stand by idly as she needed to get questions answered, especially if this random human isn’t Callum. If that was the case, which she hoped was the truth, she would go out to look for him and make sure he was safe.

Sadly, for Rayla, the walk to the castle was filled with sympathetic looks from other elves praising on her survival from a fight. That alone upset Rayla as she grew distant to those talking to her like she was a child that was defenseless in a fight. Each person tried to be compassionate but came off as arrogant pricks telling Rayla to stop being a warrior for her own safety.

It was a strange feeling to her as she felt alone in her own tribe as bystanders and even her closest allies became subject of looking down at her own strength. Rayla’s mind wandered as she walked and her brain thought back to the fight, she did see a person fighting the tree spirit, but she lost consciousness before they came into view. She didn’t feel that she was weak for having help defeating the monster, but the topic of the tree spirit was not even brought up.

“Rayla, I’m glad to see you doing well, ill send word to Lady Xeerna about your recovery.” A guard standing idly by the gate shouts to Rayla which catches her off-guard as she approaches.

Rayla herself was mentally preparing herself for the amount of affection she would receive from Xeerna but her main goal was to see the human captive.

The path in the courtyard seemed to be getting longer in her mind as she walked closer to the castle. Every stone Rayla walked on, thoughts of Callum being inside became worse on her as she felt her heart tightening. Even when it came to walking through the moonlight-infused doors of the castle.

Rayla walked down the halls of the castle and kept her mind focused on reaching the queen and asking to see the prisoner. Yet her heart was painfully stabbing her now as Rayla got closer to the royal throne room. It was almost like fate was forewarning her that her idea of hoping this captive was not Callum even if she felt she already knew was a mistake.

She already had an understanding of the interaction as he jumped from her bedroom and ran into he forest to protect his identity, but the thought of how he would be treated by those who thought humans are less than the dirt they walk on created unrest in Rayla.

Rayla spoke up to the twin guards standing by the doors protecting the throne room with magic. The magic of the door itself was projected by guards on both sides of the doorway, when they allowed entry to the room, the roots blocking the way would dissipate. Obviously, the process was tedious but worth it in the scheme of things.

The guards nodded to Rayla’s presence and she walked into the throne room as the roots reappeared behind her almost immediately.

Rayla walked over to the Queen and King sitting on their throne watching the new arrival that demanded their attention.

“My queen and king, I know this is rude of me to ask, especially after you gave my parents to ability to see to my recovery, but id like to make a request.”

Rayla was perched on one knee and bowed respectively to the royalty that was before her.

The queen stood up and walked over to Rayla far more gracefully than one would, but the way she grabbed Rayla’s hand was to show they needed to skip the pleasantries.

“Rayla, my dear one, there is nothing you need to ask of us, as we are family, not by blood, but by duty. Feel free to speak your mind, as I’m sure you’ve been wanting to ever since you could move freely again.”

Their hands still held together, but the idea of asking to see a prisoner of the land and someone that supposedly hurt her in the first place wouldn’t get the automatic ‘yes’ that was desired.

Rayla removed her hands and looked straight into the queen’s clear white eyes.

“I would like to see this human that the town talks so frequently about.”

The queen did not switch her expressions in any capacity, she simply nodded her head towards one of the guards to complete her request. Rayla gave the queen a simple bow as she left the room and followed the guard to the human captive.

Silvergroove’s way of dealing with trilobites was a simple fine and revoke their ability to work for a certain amount of time, but Rayla imagined that the differences for an enemy of the world would be more so.

Rayla followed the guard to an opening in the castle that led outside, and she could see guards posted around every window and doorway training their gaze on their prisoner. Their eyes were filled with malice and disgust as they attempted to look away from the human but had to refocus because of their duty.

Rayla’s eyes fell onto the prisoner, her heart sank and stung far worse than her journey to see him, as Callum was bound by root chains between two magical columns. His body was feigning death as lacerations covered his body, bruises doting his skin and fresh and dried blood laying all over the ground.

Callum’s clothes were tattered as his body was beaten mercilessly over the past week as Rayla rested.

The thoughts of someone as nice as him being tortured started to make Rayla tear up but she had to dismiss those tears as she needed to be unbiased to hide her knowledge of him from the other elves.

“Listen, I was wondering if I could talk to him, maybe give me a crack at trying to squeeze some information out of him?”

Rayla shrugged to the guard to get a moment to check on Callum, and luckily the guard nodded and scoffed at the human before walking back to his post in the throne room.

Her movements tried to stay calm but Rayla found herself walking a little too fast as she approached Callum. She was praying for his life as she got closer and truly saw the severity of the abuse Callum underwent. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rayla fell onto her knees to see Callum’s face bruised beyond repair, his right eye was covered by his beaten cheek. His eyes filled with despair and pain, nothing but a dull green color was all Rayla could see in him.

“Callum, Callum! Oh gods! Please tell me why you left the room?”

Rayla’s voice was filled with eagerness but she was suppressing tears as Callum lifted his head slowly looking towards the elf in front of him. The moment she could see his eye look at her, the moment his eye filled with a bright green color and he started to tear up.

“Rayla, I’m so glad you’re ok…I’m so glad…”

Rayla looked at this stupid human and saw how a smile crept over his face as he put all the focus on her safety and not his own pain.

“Why did you leave the room Callum, why did you protect yourself, why…why are you worried about me?”

Rayla felt tears rolling down her face as she faced the broken human barely able to keep his head up from lack of food, water or rest he received. She felt her mind clouding up from thoughts of him being harmed for information she was sure was being said on repeat because he wasn’t a normal human. She was unable to stop crying as she created scenarios in her head before Callum spoke up.

“Listen, I made the mistake of being to noisy and your mom almost caught me, so I jumped out the window…I wanted to wait till you got back from your trip and …I saw you fighting with that monster… and I couldn’t…let my friend die…”

Callum tears fell to the ground mixing with the blood that was there already.

“I wanted to spend more mornings eating weird fruit with you and talking the night away even if you get angry with me… I didn’t want someone close to me to leave my life again…”

Rayla couldn’t hold in her own emotions as she saw Callum convulsing against his restraints trying to wiggle out and wipe his tears away. She kept looking back at the conversations of the other elves and thought that they knew nothing of compassion. This human right here was protecting someone dear to him and even when he was broken repeatedly, he still worried his heart out.

Rayla wanted to break him free right there but the main problem is moving Callum when he is beyond walking on his own.

Rayla could hear another set of footsteps closing in on her and she wiped her tears and tried to wipe off Callum’s but before her hand reached his face, the human made an attempt to bite her hand before his head was slammed by a pair of hands.

Out of concern and wanting to protect Callum, Rayla turned to face the new person and saw it was Runaan wiping his hands from the punch he made towards the prisoner.

“Runaan, what are you doing here?”

Rayla swapping looks between Runaan purely out of concern and towards Callum to see his face, sadly when she did, Callum’s head was swinging back and forth looking at the ground.

Runaan spoke to Rayla as he placed his arm around her shoulder to guide her away from Callum.

“I heard that you were visiting the castle and I wanted to see my favorite niece. Nevertheless, I know that you are an adult, but I must ask you to stay away from that filth.”

Those words sparked anger in Rayla as she wanted to lash out and destroy Runaan, but she kept her anger hidden, knowing fully well that Runaan’s experience in combat is why he stands beside the Queen and King personally.

Rayla followed Runaan as he guided her down the halls of the castle but letting Runaan’s words fall on deaf ears and thinking purely at the selfless human she wanted so desperately to save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the break, I'm going to post the next chapter later today since I was procrastinating yet again lol.
> 
> Honestly, I would like to hear some suggestions about how you all would like to see me get detailed in gore or romance parts of the story, i know that there is no warning on the story but i don't want to go overboard if that would make people super uncomfortable.
> 
> I love you all and thank you so much for making my days brighter


	9. Enigma of the Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The elven army sure is hellbent on torturing Callum, yet the thought of his survival baffles everyone, and that means absolutely everyone.

# Chapter 9: Enigma of the Enemy

The sight of elves staring at him like he was a monster was extremely agonizing to Callum. His captors repeatedly pushed to get information out of him, but nothing new was said, as Callum knew nothing of talks of Primal Nexuses or royal secrets.

On most days, the silence or repetition of what has been said earned him two to three beatings and maybe a new wound here or there. The elves were excruciating in their tortures, as they used healing magic to prevent Callum from bleeding out but not enough magic to repair the wound completely.

It also didn’t help that Callum was tied up by some magic that bound his arms to two strange looking pillars, and he was left to stay in the same position since he got there.

It’s been a long time since he was put in this position, the days seems to blur together as he attempted to not blackout and stay awake. Most times Callum was visibly awake in the mornings and then the meeting would begin and the next thing he knew it was nighttime.

His mind was going crazy from lack of stimulation and attempts at blocking out the pain. His first couple of days were filled with blood-curdling screams and blood splashing all around him. Luckily, a couple of days after that, it rained in the forest and washed him clean in the physical sense.

Callum was slowly losing his mind as he resisted the constant amount of pain he was going through and would’ve lost it. Thankfully, last afternoon or so, Rayla came to see him and that made him beyond hopeful that his friend was truly ok.

His heart grew weak with the memory that he had to push her away, but it had to be done because of the elven officer Runaan walking to her. Callum would rather the elves hate him and ostracize him than to alienate one of their own.

Runaan was the one in charge of torturing Callum and gathering information but he seemed a bit keener on disliking Callum more than anyone else. Most likely because Callum was involved with Rayla and any plea besides a testimony to his devilish deeds was dismissed by the officer.

Runaan fit his role to a proverbial ‘T’ and hounded any information during the meetings and made sure to push all the right buttons through pain.

Callum was in an extremely weakened state that he couldn’t even bring forth his weird magic that he used in the forest that night against the monster. His body was succumbing to the malnutrition and pain that his limbs couldn’t move of their own free-will.

Even the root bindings rubbed Callum’s wrists and hands to the point that he felt his skin become tender. Any erratic movements with them would cause immense pain and he was already uncomfortable as it was.

His body was withering away but his mind was hanging on for dear life, and in all honesty, it would’ve given up too if Rayla didn’t show up.

Callum smiled through bloodied teeth and dried blood and repeated the thought in his head.

_Rayla was ok. Rayla was ok. Rayla is ok…and that’s most important._

Callum lifted his head slightly to see that it was time for the next meeting between him and Runaan. The elf was strolling over to him was a stern but proper face, his emotions were in check, but his temper wasn’t as Callum grew to understand.

Runaan approached Callum and grabbed a fist full of hair and lifted his head to meet his own eyes.

“Alright filth, time to do this again, you know the drill…Why did you come to Silvergroove?”

Callum felt his voice give out on him as he tried to speak but he knew the answer wasn’t good enough, so he stayed silent.

Runaan let his head go and pulled out a small dagger and stabbed him in the arm and the blade went straight through. Callum let out a scream as the blade pierced his body and shook at the pain amplifying in his arm.

“Ready to try again, filth? Answer correctly and ill pull the dagger out, if not then you know the punishment.”

Callum tried to talk but the lack of water made his voice raspy and silent, and that was not to Runaan’s liking. Runaan sighed as he grabbed the blade and started to twist it in the wound and Callum screamed and convulsed at the pain not crying tears but blood.

Runaan was growing impatient and pulled the blade out and grabbed Callum’s head once more and glared straight into his soul.

“Alright Human, one final question, what did you talk about with my niece that came here the other day?”

Callum felt his heart drop and he gulped and tried to speak for himself once in his life as pain enveloped his mind.

“I told Rayla that I was glad she was ok…”

Callum was smirking defiantly as Runaan grew angry and started barraging Callum’s head with powerful kicks from his knee. Runaan repeated this over and over, the sound of blood splattering the ground and the impact of his knee to Callum’s face echoing through the halls of the castle.

Runaan stopped and gathered his composure and walked away from the unconscious human hanging by arms in the opening. Callum’s body was motionless and still, until another elf walked past Runaan and used a LunarHeart flower and healed Callum slightly.

The worst thing Runaan hated about the human was his resistance to the treatments but today sparked a deeper hatred as Callum hung with a smirk crossing his face at his comment.

\----------------------------------------------

Callum felt his body becoming colder as he waited in this dark recess of his mind, yet he already had a feeling that he blacked out and it was nighttime in his prison.

His eyes flickered open as his predictions were correct and the starry night sky filled the air and his body was growing colder as the nights were unpleasant in the forest. Callum tried to distract his mind by thinking of other things and that today was no exception.

_I bet it is getting close to winter around here, I wonder if it snows as much here as it did back home?_

Callum didn’t particularly have insanely good memories back home, but the way that his view of things changed the moment some powder attached itself to it and became beautiful. That alone made him smile as he remembered trying to draw snow-covered landscapes and even make a snowman or two in his time.

Those thoughts disappeared as Callum shook in pain especially towards his arm that Runaan stabbed earlier that day.

The pain was a lot at first, but Callum continued to look around to distract himself as that was the only way for him to cope with the pain.

Callum was always baffled with the amount of guards that surrounded him during the day, yet at night, not even one watched his body. Either they were overconfident in their bindings or knew that Callum couldn’t escape on their own.

Callum chuckled to himself thinking both assumptions were probably true.

His eyes wandering around the opening that he was in and was interrupted at the sounds of something hitting stone.

“Jeez I know moonshadow elves are more active at night, but could they please keep the noise down.”

Callum returned his gaze to the windows that had several guards simply eating and enjoying their company and wanted so badly to eat that food too.

The noise behind Callum was getting louder and this started to irritate Callum to no extent as he indulged the noise, and he knocked his head backwards to see what was going on.

He couldn’t see anything but a wall and darkness, nothing too out of the ordinary and the stone hitting noise seemed to have stop.

_That’s weird, I’m starting to really dislike Xadia to be completely honest_. Callum’s thoughts speaking out as he was about to turn his head to its original position.

When he did Callum sighed to continue his game of ignore his pain, until he heard a voice.

“Callum, don’t speak, be quiet.”

Callum felt his blood run could as he started to look around and saw nothing around him, but he could’ve sworn he heard a voice.

“Callum, calm down, I’m going to get you out of here.”

The voice spoke again and then Callum sighed.

“Alright disembodied voice, were doing this again? You really need to pick your times to invade my company cause it’s just obnoxious now.”

When Callum finished that sentence, he felt a hand smack the back of his head and he revolted in response and swung his head backwards to be meet with a pair of hands holding his head gently.

From nothing came into view Rayla wearing a dark teal tunic with black boots and she had a black hood covering her head.

“You can go invisible?” Callum said in astonishment as Rayla put a hand over his mouth to reinforce her point.

“Callum for the sake of all the gods in this world can you please shut up, I’m sorry it took me so long to get you out.”

Rayla smiled at Callum which was quickly reciprocated until she let his head go and walked up to the pillars and started writing runes on it. Callum couldn’t quite see the runes but when she stood up the pillar absorbed the runes and the set of roots holding one of his arms fell loose.

Callum watched as Rayla quickly did the same to the other pillar and when the other roots fell apart Callum fell onto the ground his body gave in to the chance to relax in a better position.

Rayla walked over to Callum and lifted his arm over her shoulder and tried to steady him. Callum felt happy as could be when he was free of that prison but felt despair as he turned his head to the other side of Rayla.

Rayla was too focused on her task to move him before Callum spoke up.

“Rayla, I appreciate the thought, but we can’t escape…”

Callum saw the confusion in her eyes, but he lifted one of his arms barely in the direction of the wall that she climbed up on.

Callum and Rayla both stared blankly at the group of elves standing on the wall and in the middle, was Runaan.

His eyes saw Runaan staring at him with such hatred that he would kill Callum where he slouched over but restrained because of his niece nearby.

“Rayla remove yourself from that filth, I knew that he cast some kind of hex on you, he made you his slave.”

Runaan’s words made Callum wince and chuckle a bit under his breath at the ridiculous accusation being made as Rayla stepped forward slightly as she kept hold of Callum.

Callum could feel Rayla take a deep breath as she started talking loud and quite clear to the point the guards inside the castle started migrating to the conflict.

“This human saved my life and I think its completely wrong that he’s being treated like so…this is not an ok treatment for anyone!”

Runaan cut Rayla off abruptly as he interjected.

“Be that as it may, that is not anybody, it is just a mistake on the world that deserves far worse than anything he’s getting now.”

Callum shuddered at the idea of his treatments being far worse than the nightmare he’s had to endure so far. He wanted more than anything to throw his own opinion into the fight, but his voice was barely able to get past a loud whisper. His mind wanted to plead his case but Rayla was talking again.

“You and I both know this isn’t right, yes I know that humans committed the greatest sin in Xadia but that was many centuries ago. If humans were monsters even after all that time…why would this one help me?”

Callum was surprised to see Rayla speaking out like this, but her points were falling on deaf ears as a thought occurred to Callum.

_She never once said my name…that means she’s keeping neutral…_

“Runaan, trust me I wouldn’t do something this crazy if I didn’t believe in the impact of it all.”

Rayla’s voice was wavering as time went on while Runaan’s glare was unimpeded and constantly stabbing Callum.

Runaan waved his hands over to Callum and multiple guards started to make their way to Callum and pulled Rayla from his grasp. All Callum could see as Rayla slowly let go of the human was her eyes apologizing and falling in defeat.

Runaan dropped down and walked towards Callum as he kept his gaze fixed and studied the human closely.

“Enough of this farce, come next full moon, you will be judged by the royal family and sentenced to death.”

Runaan waved at some guards and walked over to Rayla and wrapped an arm around her and guided her out of the opening.

Callum stood alone barely holding onto his strength as groups of guards stood ready to kill him if he made a move. His body was so weak that he couldn’t even move on his own if he tried yet the elven warriors held their distance like he could fight them all at once.

Callum felt his knees buckle as he fell onto the ground and heard the rattle of armor moving closer to him. Two elven guards hoisted Callum up by his arms and dragged him through the hallways of the castle letting his legs skitter on the floor. His legs felt like clay as they caught on the indents of the floor between tiles, nevertheless the guards opened a small room and tossed Callum straight into it before locking the door and leaving.

His body was sore but screaming with joy as he could finally lay down. Callum trained his gaze to the room itself as he laid flat on the floor, it seemed to be a small closet for all kinds of different fabrics and pieces of clothing. All of them seemed to be expensive and tailored to fit someone of the royal household but that thought was unimportant to Callum.

Callum wanted to just lay on the ground and try to sleep but his mind was adamant about the idea as his mind raced to Rayla.

His thoughts wanted to make sure she was ok or if she was in a heap of trouble, yet the conversation she had with Runaan made him think that she would be ok. She was playing the devil’s advocate and was doing what anyone would do in her shoes without being too suspicious.

“The more and more I think about it, this world is a lot less enjoyable then my life before…”

Callum chuckled as he voiced this to himself thinking about mechanized wars and innocent people being killed for the sake of victory.

Thoughts of his old world filled Callum with sadness until the sound of the door to the closet was being unlocked. He took a moment to prop himself against the wall and looked at the door as he heard the person opening it struggle to use a key.

The door swung open and a young elf with an extravagant dress waltzed in shoving a key into her pocket and walked over to a shelf examining fabrics.

Callum felt confusion wash over his face as he stared at this elf with brown hair falling to her hips and markings on her cheeks completely oblivious of a human in her presence.

“Ahem” Callum tried to catch the visitors attention as he sat against a wall and watched the elf looking startled and glanced around the room to pinpoint the noise, yet she was looking towards the top of the room and not at the ground.

“I’m sorry ancestors as I did not know this closet was impeding on your resting place and I mean no harm!”

Callum saw the elf clasping her hands together and shutting her eyes tight like she was praying not to be haunted for the rest of her life. Callum laughed out loud seeing this silly elf freaking out about ghosts before he saw her look at him.

The elf stared blankly at Callum and for more than a few moments, and it was just silence until the elf spoke up.

“Why are you sitting in my fabrics closet?” The way she said it made Callum think like he was actually being rude being somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

He snapped out of it and returned to reality. “I’m sorry for startling you, but I was kind of placed here until the next full moon for my judgement.”

The elf continued looking blankly at Callum like he was talking about a bunch of nonsense.

“What could you have done to be placed in a…Fabric Closet?

Callum laughed shrugging his shoulders at the stoic face of the elf looking at him before he regained his composure (what’s left of it) and talked.

“I didn’t really get a say in the matter, but I must ask, why aren’t you treating me like the plague?”

The elf’s face became one of disinterest as she turned back towards the shelf and moved her hands through fabrics.

“To be completely honest with you, I don’t care what you are or what you’ve done unless it was to me specifically. Elves of the past choose to reject humanity because of their mistakes and held onto the hatred for no reason. I have no petty desire to hold a grudge for some odd number of centuries. “

Callum felt his chin drop at her response but elected to keep talking to this strange person.

“I’m Callum by the way, I thought I should say that while I have your company. Oh, and just to be on the same page, I’ve been against this wall and on the floor my entire time in the closet so everything in here is safe and accounted for.”

The elf turned towards Callum and walked over to him and stared at him.

“Xeerna, the next queen of Silvergroove, but right now dress maker extraordinaire.”

Callum laughed at her introduction and tried to shuffle himself in his position but felt a surge of pain hit and evoked a small yelp.

The elf turned to leave the room and closed the door behind her without even giving Callum a chance to say goodbye. Callum was bewildered at the conversation had with the princess of the castle and fell silent at the words she said to him.

That was until he heard the door open again and saw Xeerna walking in with a big brown bag and sat in front of Callum and laid said bag on the floor next to her.

“Ill make you a deal Callum, ill patch you up and take care of you till the next full moon in five days…”

Callum shuddered at the pause she gave herself and grinned devilishly as she stared at him.

“…and in return, you’ll help me test my skills on a man and be my dress dummy. I guess I should say ‘suit’ dummy.”

Xeerna’s face lit up as she said that and smiled so brightly that Callum chuckled and agreed before his new friend started to remove bandages from the brown bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im going to be 150% with everyone right now. I may or may not have procrastinated to the point of not even posting a chapter in several days. 
> 
> I apologize as it wasnt even that something came up to grab my attention, i just forgot.
> 
> So be ready as i will be posting 5 chapters in next couple of days.
> 
> Also, i know ive been negelcting my first story and will return to it, but im beyond happy to see this story doing better than that one. 
> 
> P.S. Those comments...those make me happy lol


	10. Dressed to Survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Princess Xeerna is throwing Callum through the wringer as he attempts to recover from his torture, and he is sure to reciprocate the feeling.

# Chapter 10: Dressed to Survive

Callum was sitting shirtless while Xeerna was threading a needle through his open wounds and cleaning them, respectively. The fact that a princess was incredibly calm and well-versed in medical practices surprised Callum to no end. The fact she wasn’t squirming like Callum was watching her touching his muscle tissue gave a new bit of respect for the princess regardless of their first time meeting.

Xeerna was calm and precise with her treatment and was very conscious to Callum’s pain threshold whenever he would tense as she would start on a new wound.

Callum was growing more and more surprised at the way Xeerna was treating him like a person in comparison to Runaan.

His thoughts of Runaan torturing Callum consumed his memories for some time until the sound of Xeerna clearing her throat snapped him out of his thoughts.

Callum examined himself and saw his body bandaged rather nicely and no longer riddled with new or dried blood.

Xeerna threw a piece of fabric over his head and used a safety pin to link the fabric under his chin. She grabbed Callum by his arm and stood there as his support before trying to lead him out of the room.

Callum felt anxious as he was put in the room not that long ago and didn’t want to see how Runaan would deal with him if they met again.

“Xeerna listen, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to leave this room, wont they check on me and if I’m gone, then you’ll get in trouble.”

Xeerna turned her head towards Callum as she opened to door wide enough for both to walk through and answered.

“If they threw you in there for judgement then they won’t get you till the day, also I’m the next queen so id like to see the guards do something to me.”

Callum saw a smirk cross Xeerna’s face as she talked about her immunity and casually strolled down the hallways with a limping passenger accompanying her.

The fact that the guards weren’t even checking the hobbling individual next to the princess and even socializing with her casually made Callum doubt his whole understanding of how elves dealt with prisoners. Xeerna promptly reached a set of doors and dismissed the guards stationed there and even told them not to worry about returning as she would be in her room for the rest of the day.

Callum and Xeerna entered her bedroom and instantly the first thing that grabbed his attention was the massive array of clothes laying throughout the room.

Xeerna laid Callum on a padded chair near her bed and walked over to the door to her room and voiced something to Callum.

“Would you like something to eat? I can get anything for you if you’d like because I’m quite hungry myself.”

Callum felt his stomach growl with voracity as he completely forgot he needed to eat due to the immense pain he was always in.

“Moonberries please if that’s not too much to ask for.”

Xeerna stared blankly at him and shrugged as she opened her door slightly and asked an ongoing maid to bring food to her chambers.

She turned back towards her room and started scooping up the dresses thrown about and threw them into a big pile on the floor in a corner of her house size closet. Xeerna turned towards Callum and grinned as she pulled some measuring tape from her pockets and inched towards the human.

Callum felt scared for a moment as he remembered that he agreed to this but had no idea that tailoring would instill such fear.

\---------------------------------------------

Some time had passed and Xeerna was unrelenting in her pursuit of making suits for the first time in her life as she measured Callum’s body and promptly grabbed a sketchbook and doodled over a dozen ideas.

Callum could see a monstrous look of inspiration hitting Xeerna as she doodled and all he could do was sit quietly and pray that he comes out of all this alive.

Several knocks at the door alerted Xeerna as she sat her sketchbook down and walked over to the door and wheeled in a tray of food. Callum eyed the moonberries immediately and he started scoffing down berries even allowing them to fill his cheeks.

His body was enjoying eating food after more than a week of starving until he smelt a familiar aroma hit his nostrils. Callum looked over to the princess and saw her happily munching on what looked to be venison.

“Wait, Xeerna I thought elves didn’t eat meat or kill animals?”

Xeerna stopped eating and placed her utensils down after shoving a big piece of food in her mouth.

“I don’t know who told you elves don’t eat meat, first of all, we are a race of hunters and secondly, if we kill animals then we have a ritual to allow safe passage back to the earth to thank them for their life.”

“ I can imagine that was your train of thought when I asked what you wanted to eat because, I imagined you would’ve wanted actual meat but if moonberries do the job…good for you.”

Xeerna returned to eating as Callum felt moonberries drop from his over-filled mouth and back onto the dish they were brought in with.

Callum would’ve loved anything to eat actual meat again but decided to try the next time they would eat as he learned to quickly deal with what he gets.

Compared to the time Callum spent with Rayla talking, Xeerna’s company was similar as they just talked about casual things and he even enjoyed it. The fact that Callum could enjoy conversing with another elf besides Rayla that didn’t want his head on a pike, filled him with a piece of happiness.

Even after their meal, continued small talk between the two filled the air while Xeerna started sewing fabric together. The sun in the sky soon switched to night as the time flew by and Callum saw Xeerna growing tired.

“Alright Callum, I’m going to bed and id suggest you do the same, because I will want to continue this as early as possible.”

Callum sighed through a smile as he stood up from his padded chair and laid on the floor by the foot of the bed. His eyes looking at the ceiling before Xeerna poked her head over his and her hair falling on Callum’s face.

Callum sat up wiping hair that had fallen on his lips and stared confusingly at Xeerna.

“I’m trying to sleep, as I thought you were?”

Xeerna laughed as he sat up in her bad and waved over to Callum.

“As enjoyable as sleeping on the floor would be for you, I will allow you to sleep next to me until your judgement. I can’t have you moaning about your back for the next five days.”

Callum felt his face redden at the thought of sharing a bed with a girl as he personally never even held hands with a girl before.

His face became calm as he thought about how far that he went with a girl before and his mind went blank as he came up empty. That was until his mind snuck in a glimpse of him looking through Rayla’s personal belongings and holding her undergarments.

Callum felt his whole body erupt in flames as he tried to hide his embarrassment at the thought of holding Rayla’s bra.

Xeerna was tapping the right side of her bed inviting Callum to join her which he did hesitantly and was soon enveloped by a cloud of comfort. The moment the blanket and mattress made contact with Callum’s body he fell unconscious instantaneously.

\------------------------------------------------------

Callum felt a tapping on his shoulder as he laid in Xeerna’s bed and shuffled himself to view the perpetrator and saw Xeerna grinning at Callum.

“Sleep well? You look like a whole different person when you wake up.”

Callum propped himself on his elbow and he rubbed his eyes and worked his way out of the cloud that he slept in. The sun was starting to rise over the forest and Xeerna was already working on her tailoring as Callum became fully awake.

His mind was still struggling to maintain focus as he walked over to the princess happily humming as she worked.

“Hey, Xeerna, I have to ask, but why do you want to be able to make suits if you’re incredibly talented at making dresses?”

Xeerna stopped her sewing as she paused but resumed and talked at the same time but this time quieter.

“My mother is making me marry someone I have no intention of marrying and honestly, I thought if I could do something like this, I could actually offer him something. I’m actually a pathetic princess that can say her only redeeming quality is dress making. I can’t even fight with a weapon as my mother or father can.”

Callum saw such sadness creep over Xeerna as she spoke which broke the illusion, he had of the multitasking princess that made his life a lot easier if only for a couple of days.

“Well I don’t think that, I think you’re unbelievably strong on the inside. You’re far more incredible than any princess I’ve ever met because you push yourself to go beyond expectations. It is your kindness and determination that made me look to you for help in that closet, and it is your ideals that you make your own destiny and that makes you stronger than a queen that can use a sword.”

Xeerna looked at Callum before she started laughing.

“She doesn’t use a sword, but I appreciate the words, I really needed that…thank you Callum.”

Callum felt relieved as Xeerna happily returned to work and with that he walked over to her and stood next to her so she could continue measurements. 

\-------------------------------------------------------

Days had passed as Callum enjoyed the company of Xeerna as dozens of finished suits filled the room and the princess still sleeping in her bed as she stayed up extremely late finishing alterations.

Callum felt a lot stronger than he did when he first came up to Xeerna’s room and his wounds started healing quite nicely thanks to her skills. Yet the thought of tomorrow being his final day made any happy thoughts disappear.

Tomorrow was his execution and Callum wanted to live but he could easily imagine that Xeerna or even Rayla couldn’t stand against the mass hatred that elves hold over humans.

“Rayla…”

Callum felt himself say her name as he thought to how sad she looked when her breakout attempt failed, and she was forced to leave him. He didn’t even get a chance to thank her for everything she did for him since they met just a couple of weeks ago.

It was a crazy thought as Callum only got the chance to live a couple of weeks before he died in a whole new world. He barely even got the chance to try out new magic or even see what the world offered him.

Callum sighed as he felt a surge of energy crackle between his fingertips and watched as electricity danced frantically around his hand. He had an idea to fight against the elves to secure his safety but dismissed it at the thought of making elves hate humans even more if that was possible.

Callum wanted more than anything to survive…yet that idea became more and more impossible as he viewed his surroundings. He was the sole human in a world full of races that hated humans, so even if he escaped the elves, hatred would continue everywhere else.

He walked over to the window and saw that it would be sunrise soon as the tops of the trees grew brighter. Callum walked over to a dark teal suit with a purple button up on the inside and ran his hand over it.

_Xeerna made all these suits and I can imagine she would be able to adjust them easily to fit someone. It just sad to know that these are all made specifically for me…_

Death was filling his mind as he stared at all the suits in the room and seeing all the chances, he could’ve had to wear these suits. Maybe to some parties, dates, or even a wedding if Xeerna thought that fondly of him.

A quiet knock at the door alerted Callum as he quickly dove to the side of Xeerna’s bed and hid silently.

The door creaked opened a sound of footsteps growing louder as they approached the bed until a voice spoke up.

“Xeerna? Wake up please I have to talk to you about something?”

Callum’s eyes went wide as he heard a Scottish accent speaking and associated the voice to Rayla’s with sounds of the princess waking up.

“What’s wrong Rayla?”

Xeerna sounded completely out of the conversation but it was easy to imagine that she was worried. Callum thought to himself as he pressed a hand to his mouth to hide his breathing.

Callum’s heart was racing as he continued listening to the conversation.

“I’m sorry Xeerna, but I’m going to do something that will make me have to leave Silvergroove and I don’t think I’ll be able to come back.”

Rayla’s voice was cracking as she spoke, and Callum could hear her attempt to hold back tears.

“What are you going to do Rayla? So much so that our clan would have to ghost you?”

Callum grew curious at the Xeerna’s use of ghost and hoped to ask her later when the situation was less serious.

He could hear Rayla clear her throat and speak with such conviction and felt his heart drop when she talked.

“I’m going to denounce to clan for treating the human wrong, and I’m going to leave the forest and be on the run with him.”

Callum wanted more than anything to stand up and tell her not to, as she still has her dreams to pursue and to not worry about him. That was until Xeerna started busting out laughing.

“Oh, come on now Rayla, its not that serious, why would you abandon the whole clan just for a random human?”

Rayla’s words grew sharp as she cut off the princess.

“Callum is not a random human; he’s kind, smart, never gives up, and not the kind of person that would affiliate with those of the past. If he’s anything, then I think he would be humanity’s redemption. “

The sound of the bed shuffling made it clear that Xeerna got closer to Rayla to console her.

“Alright Callum, I think it’s time for your input on the situation.”

Xeerna’s words shocked Callum as he stood up abruptly and stared at the two girls sitting on the bed. Callum could instantly see that Rayla was staring at him with bewilderment and some tears doted her face.

Callum was getting ready to open his mouth to speak to Rayla as he saw her leap over the bed and threw her arms around him. Callum wasn’t expecting this as he fell backwards and felt his head contact the wall of the room.

His head was screaming in pain as he rubbed his head with one of his hands but grew aware of the elf holding onto him.

Rayla was just laying against him not saying anything, but Callum could feel her breathing against his chest and tears wetting his shirt.

Callum wanted to say so many things to her as they stayed like this but felt only one thing come to mind.

“Rayla…thank you for being in my life.”

Callum saw as Rayla lifted her head from his chest and stared into his eyes. Rayla’s face was smiling even as tears slithered down her cheeks, and all she could do was smile.

Rayla eventually got off Callum and sat back on the bed trying to collect herself. Xeerna also moved to sit next to her to join in on the conversation and sit across from Callum.

Silence filled the room as Rayla tried to wipe away her tears until she spoke up.

“Callum, I’m glad to see that you’re ok, but I have one question to ask you?”

Callum nodded to her question but could sense a problem with the situation as he saw Xeerna grinning wickedly.

“What are you doing in Xeerna’s bedroom?”

Before Callum could even get a chance to react to the question, Xeerna stood up and clung onto Callum’s arm.

“I brought him here to become my betrothed, obviously Rayla, I told you I didn’t want to marry some random prince.”

Callum felt his jaw drop as his neck heated up and saw that Rayla’s face was growing agitated. His mind was going wild as this new speculation was making his heart go into overdrive mode.

“Wait Rayla that’s not true, she was helping me recover until the judgement and in return I would be her guinea pig for suit making.”

Callum saw as Xeerna feigned a distraught look and repeated “after all we did together”.

Rayla stood up and walked over to Callum as Xeerna continued to talk and she stopped as both looked at the white-haired elf standing menacingly.

“Uh Rayla? Is everything ok?”

Callum stared at Rayla before she used both hands and grabbed his collar and hoisted him onto his feet.

His mind was scared at the thought of her knocking the shit out of him for a complete misunderstanding. She didn’t even dare look into his eyes and that thought alone made Callum fear for his life.

It was only a moment, but Rayla looked into his eyes and pulled him into a kiss. Callum felt his whole world melt away and could only feel Rayla and her soft lips embracing his own. The quick second felt a lot longer than Callum imagined and he wanted to savor the moment.

That was until Rayla broke the kiss and let go of Callum and stared angrily at Xeerna.

“He’s mine…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the topic of Elves being vegetarians, i feel that they should be able to eat meat since they one with the forest. If you are having a little trouble with the whole ritualistic idea that i was talking about then check out Avatar (James Cameron). The way they handle killing animals is how i think about it.
> 
> Also, lets go, another chapter in the books, three more to go before im back on track.


	11. Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Callum's execution draws near with chances of surviving falling close to slim. With options running out and Rayla unable to assist in a manner to help, death is seeming to be the only answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a link for a piece i got commissioned for chapter 7:Awakening .
> 
> [ check out @eonrunnerwriter on ig to check for update on my fanfics and even see art i get commissioned for my stories.](https://www.instagram.com/p/CCeAFD-Hl6g/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)
> 
> ALSO CHECK OUT @KIMINOTIA  
> Her art is incredible and she was the one who made this vision of Callum 10000000x better.

# Chapter 11: Goodbyes

Rayla’s face felt hot as she spoke so directly to Xeerna about claiming Callum. In her mind she wanted to hit him for being so casual with the princess but ended up doing something completely out of her realm of being.

She had kissed Callum, kissed him, and the thing about it all was that Rayla didn’t dislike it at all. If she hadn’t caught herself and retreated to make her point, then she may have let it go on a little longer.

Rayla shook her head and focused back on Callum who was paralyzed by the event that just took place. His eyes were wide and almost sparkled as he looked in her direction. Rayla blushed slightly as she turned away and got back on the situation at hand.

“Callum listen, we need to talk about how to get you out of your trial of judgement. If we can escape without hurting anyone that would be ideal, but if we must fight, we will.”

Callum’s mind snapped back as he joined into the conversation rubbing his neck and looking away from Rayla.

“I understand that you want to protect me, but if we escape then ill have to deal with the same bit of hatred wherever I go. Also, If I choose to fight then nothing will change, there isn’t a real good plan for me to avoid conflict of any kind.”

Rayla felt her heart drop as she couldn't disagree with Callum, and as she tried thinking of many ways to help her human. _Her Human_? Rayla startled herself as she thought that as she really didn’t mean for that to happen a moment ago.

“Callum listen, you practically saved my life, and I can’t let you die until I’ve repaid that debt.”

Rayla’s words strained on the words she just spoke, and Callum’s face grew sad as he finally looked in her direction.

“Rayla, you may not realize this, but i have a debt that i haven't been able to pay. It was you that saved me from killing myself several weeks ago, you took care of me and gave me a place to stay. Rayla, you gave me a chance to experience a life I couldn’t even think of living before. I can do magic for goodness sake and that alone makes me beyond unique…which Is all I wanted.”

Xeerna pops her head into the conversation with confusion that stops the conversation between Callum and Rayla.

“Did I just hear you say that you can do magic?”

Callum’s head turns to Xeerna and he nods as he lifted his arm up and allowed the lightning runes to light up.

His arm created a bright blue lightning and stayed on his right arm while his right eye also sparked with the same color.

Rayla became shocked at the way Callum just lit up(literally) and she couldn’t remember him being able to do this at all.

“Callum, since when could you use sky magic? I didn’t teach you anything about that?”

Callum chuckled as he turned off his sky magic and continued talking to the other two girls in the room.

“Ever since that night where I found you in the woods Rayla, I felt something surge over me, something familiar. From the moment I could fell that energy, I was able to use this power…sadly I have little control over the strength of the spells as I haven’t had a chance to try any new ones out. Which is why i burned that monster to a crisp, along with a nice bit of the woods as well.”

Rayla was dumfounded at the prospect of Callum being so inept with sky magic and started thinking of all the possibilities of fighting out, but the concerns Callum had voiced resonated within her.

Her eyes viewed the person idly talking to Xeerna about magic with such kindness, that any thoughts of saving him lasted only a moment.

The elven army was a force to be reckoned with, not only did they have strength in numbers, but centuries of perfected battle strategies and ways to deal with any array of enemies.

Rayla sighed deeply with these admirable yet disturbing thoughts plaguing her head. She felt Xeerna’s arm wrap around her shoulder as Rayla was brought in for a side hug.

Xeerna was silent, but attempting to console her grief-stricken friend, and her calm breathing only added sadness to the room.

The three were quiet and each sequestering themselves to their thoughts until the sight of the sunrise peaked into the room blinding Callum and Rayla.

“I guess we had better return you to the closet Callum, the time is almost here.”

Xeerna’s voice hurt Rayla as she looked to Callum to see him nod in agreement as he walked along side her to the door.

Rayla’s mind was in a daze as she wanted to say so many things to Callum, but she just sat on the edge of the bed not even giving her friends the light of day.

The sound of the door opening, and closing didn’t even break Rayla out of her trance as she felt her eyes fall to her hands. They laid upward on her thighs, empty yet urging to do something.

The execution wouldn’t take place until nightfall when the full moon was in sight, yet the longer Rayla sat on the bed, the more time seemed to forget she was there.

Her eyes looked away from her empty hands and viewed the room now entirely lit up from the sun in the sky. Rayla felt lost as her moments of recollection became hours, and she couldn’t even gather the strength to stand on her own.

“Rayla? Why are you still moping around here?”

Xeerna’s voice was somber as she kneeled in front of Rayla and clasped her face in both of her hands.

“Shouldn’t you be out there trying to save your lover?”

Rayla stared at her friend and felt a strong sense of heat creep up her neck as she pulled back from Xeerna.

“He’s not my lover, I just…”

Xeerna leaned her head to one side teasingly as she mouthed _he’s what_.

Rayla felt her mind remember her forcefully claiming Callum as her property, but that didn’t go how she planned. Rayla just wanted to keep Callum away from Xeerna’s grubby hands.

“…he just means a bit more to me than most…that’s all…”

As those words rolled off Rayla’s lips, she felt a bit conflicted. She was telling the truth that she thought of him like that, not romantically as she only talked to him for a few weeks. Yet something was tugging at her that she hid away to deal with the matter at hand.

“Xeerna, will you be ok if I decide to go through with helping Callum escape?”

Rayla watched her friend tightly held Rayla’s hands and nodded with a small smile. Xeerna looked peacefully at Rayla until her mouth dropped slightly at the realization of something.

“Rayla, I may have an idea that can resolve this situation without bloodshed…”

Rayla was listening to the conversation eagerly but knew all too well that such blessing always had a catch.

“Callum said that he was fighting a monster that night in the woods when he found you. Guards spoke of a destroyed Tree spirit that was corrupted by some darker magic and it had mercilessly killed many elves in its wake. So, if you were to present the fact that Callum did an act that protected the city, and even purged the impurity of the woods, then he may see leniency.”

Rayla’s eyes sparked at the thought of speaking about it, its true that he may see some mercy for that act, but it doesn’t change to fact Callum is human.

“Xeerna, that still leaves the major problem, Callum is being held here because he is a human.”

Rayla saw as Xeerna walked back and forth in her room attempting to contemplate a solution to the endeavor. Which didn’t take noticeably long as Xeerna stopped pacing and faced Rayla again.

“You seem keen on being a martyr for Callum... so be one.”

Rayla felt confusion crash into her hard as the dots weren’t connecting as they did with Xeerna.

“Let me explain, if you were to come forward and tell the king and queen that Callum helped you recover was because he is your slave. Bound by a pact of the moon, and of course that would raise concern in the court. The execution would be forfeit as with our laws of bounding by the moon and Callum would be set free…at the cost of your allegiance to the clan.”

Rayla finally caught up to the point Xeerna was trying to make and honestly, she was appalled at the depth and thought that went into it. Yet the thought of proclaiming to the entirety of elvendom that Callum was her property was crazy.

She wasn’t worried about becoming ghosted from her clan as she already said her goodbyes and left final words to her family, once they searched her room.

Sad as it was, the hugs and affection she gave her family was the last ones she would be able to enjoy as her family would soon forget Rayla.

Rayla looked up to a worried Xeerna waiting for a response or even an emotion from her friend to show interest in the idea. Much more than a simple nod or agreement of the plan that would act.

Rayla stood up from her spot on the bed and embraced Xeerna in a tight hug and simply said.

“Thank you for everything Xeerna, this plan will set things in motion and I’m not going to take a step back anymore.”

Rayla felt a tighter return of the hug and removed herself from Xeerna as she walked to the door to leave her friend for a time that no one knew themselves.

Rayla left Xeerna’s room and walked with haste towards the throne room and decided to wait patiently for the trial to begin.

\-----------------------------------------

Nighttime fell almost too slowly for Rayla’s liking but the time for action was closing in. Her mind and heart were calm as she had such a long opportunity to prepare herself for the backlash she’d soon receive.

Elves started pouring into the throne room as the trial was about to begin, elves with nobility and even those with nothing to their names stood cautiously at the human that would be brought forth soon for judgement.

Chattering was consuming the air as time flew by until the root doors fell to reveal the king and queen entering the room. As they took only a few steps, each elf kneeled to one knee and showed respect to royalty until they took their seats.

Rayla was watching the room with her eyes as she slowly turned her head while still kneeling to see if anyone of interest was attending the trial. Unfortunately, anyone of interest was an understatement, as her mother and father stood close to the queen. On the opposite end of the room, Neemus and Serah were nervously kneeling as they too looked for the human.

“The trail of execution for the Human who invaded our home and endangered the entirety of elvendom will now begin.”

The queen’s voice was powerful as she spoke which granted the kneeling elves a chance of reprieve.

Rayla stood up and trained her head towards the large root-covered doors at the entrance of the throne room where everyone else entered. With small murmurs dotting the edges of the throne room and fidgeting elves concerned with their well-being. Soon the roots fell and so did all talking.

Callum was being forced along by Runaan by his neck, Callum was sporting new gashes and bruises most likely from Runaan. Her uncle reached the middle of the room and forced Callum to collapse on all four in front of the queen and king.

Runaan bent down and whispered something into Callum’s ear as he soon rose and walked over to the queen and bowed respectively before taking his place next to Rayla’s parents.

“Human, do you know why you are being placed in front of royalty for us do decide whether you live or die?”

Rayla watched as Callum avoided the queen's gaze and shook his head slowly.

The queen’s voice was stern but filled with an uninterested tone as many could imagine that no matter the pleas of the human, his death was inevitable.

“To skip all the pleasantries human, I have one question for you? What is your purpose here?”

Rayla felt her body urging to spring into action but hesitated as Callum rose to his feet and looked straight at the queen as Runaan stepped forward to intervene.

“I’m going to protect those I care about from a monster that will bring destruction to this world as it did mine.”

Chatter filled the room as elves started panicking, the queen even positioned herself on her throne to show that she was intrigued.

“What do you mean by that human? Are you saying that you aren’t from Xadia?”

Callum nodded as Runaan rushed forward and landed a powerful blow to Callum’s stomach forcing him to keel over and spit up blood.

Rayla had enough of the treatment and rushed forward towards her uncle and Callum and placed a hand on Runaan’s shoulder as she pushed him away. Rayla watched as all eyes fell on her and even Runaan stood shocked.

Rayla dismissed the views and leaned over to help Callum stand up.

“Rayla, what is it that you are doing?

The queen stood facing Rayla with concern as she waited for a response.

“I am helping this human, my queen, as he is not a monster as we were taught to know him as. I will no longer stand idly by and allow such judgement to befall him and you will not continue any attempts to harm him.”

Runaan walked over to Rayla trying to grab her arm to bring her away from Callum but she revolted and knocked his hand away before she spoke her mind.

“My queen, this human is far more incredible than those that came before him. His name is Callum and he saved the forest as well as the lives of those that fell in them.”

Murmurs continued among the elves until the queen silenced them and allowed Rayla to continue.

“It was Callum that destroyed the corrupted tree spirit and even saved my life, he is a unique human that can access magic. Even better than that he can freely use sky magic at will.”

The queen laughed at the prospect and sat down to stare daggers at Rayla.

“A human that can perform magic? That is impossible as is the chance that he defeated a tree spirit unarmed.”

Rayla looked towards Callum as she hoped her thoughts conveyed to him, which they did as Callum invoked his magic and runes reappeared on his arm and lightning sparked from his body.

The entire throne room started in an uproar as the entirety of the guards along with the royalty standing cautiously at the thought of a human possessing magic. The queen soon stepped forward past the guards standing in fear as she spoke with a booming voice.

“He is even far more dangerous than we imagined Rayla, he must die as he cannot be controlled.”

Rayla looked back at Callum staring at her wide-eyed ready to see her next move at the queen’s attempt to checkmate her. Rayla smiled at Callum and turned back towards the queen ready to deliver the final smack down of her speech.

“He will not be harmed by any of you any longer as I will mention that he and I have formed a pact bound by the moon.”

Tiadrin rushed forward as those words came forth and held her weapons facing Callum. “What do you mean, you bound yourself to him Rayla, why would you do this?”

Rayla watched her mother’s eyes fearful at the idea of where this conversation will go even at the idea of the human gaining immunity.

“He saved my life just as I did for him, and with those terms I bound him to be my slave and he was only doing his job in protecting me in the forest all that time ago.”

Tiadrin lowered her weapon not out of regret because she had to follow the laws put in place by the bounding.

“Rayla, do you realize what it is that you have done? To abandon those who trusted you for the sake of a monster. To become ghosted and become exiled from our clan?”

Rayla stood proudly as she faced her peers and smirked as she spoke up to the queen.

“I do whatever it takes to protect those I care about, and if I must leave the clan, then so be it.”

She turned back to Callum and pulled out one of her blades and removed his bindings and grabbed his hand and started leading him out of the throne room.

Rayla felt the eyes of her family not stabbing her as she left but longing for her to change her mind, but the die was cast. Sadness crept throughout her heart as she led Callum out of the castle until Callum pulled her arm to stop her.

“Rayla, trust me I’m glad that you saved me…but wasn’t it your dream to serve the royal guard…”

Rayla turned towards Callum and threw her arms around him and simply hugged him.

“This was the right thing for me to do, as much as I wanted to dream, having dreams wasn’t made for someone like me. I don’t regret what I did Callum, but I will regret it if we don’t get this town far behind us.”

Callum looked at her trying to chime into the conversation.

“Where would we go Rayla, I’m not very sure where anything else is around here?”

Rayla smiled at Callum and simply said.

“Time for an adventure!”

Rayla saw Callum return a smile and he pulled ahead of her and motioned her to keep up with him. She looked once more to the castle and to all her family and friends and sighed. Rayla’s heart grew heavy but she ran after Callum ready to start a new adventure wherever it leads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this chapter got heavy really quick, but luckily for me this is the beginning of it all. Now that the stage is set, i can move forward with new characters and thicken the plot. 
> 
> Also, the pining continues for the two love birds even with Rayla being ghosted by her clan. 
> 
> I'm so ready to bring in more 'POW' with the story lol
> 
> Thank you all so much for the comments <3
> 
> And i will be taking a week off from writing and then i will begin writing and uploading 4 days every week.


	12. The Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Corruption becomes more appearant. New allies in the horizon. Death always claiming lives without respite. 
> 
> The new stage has been set for Callum and Rayla, but problems must arise when someone is shined upon with good fortune.

# Chapter 12: The Void

#### \---Glimpses of light flicker in the darkness as it consumes all---

The damp, cramped feeling of the jagged floor was piercing his clothes as his limp body laid motionless along it. His eyes fluttered to gain his bearings on his location, but pain surged throughout his entire body and elected a diminished but cried out in agony.

_Calm down, this is just a failed experiment, nothing you’re not used to…except for the pain_. His thoughts trailed throughout his mind as the man wobbled vigorously to keep his balance on his feet.

With darting eyes and curious thoughts, the environment around him was a giant cave that towered mercilessly over him. The ceiling was non-existent as the darkness hid any glimpse one would have to see above them. Jagged rocks and stalagmites protruded from the floor with bright green liquid seeping in them.

Parts of the ground gave way, but the man could see that some mysterious substance filled the spots. The aura the substance alone radiated was filling the man with a sense of power…almost dark.

The man staggered forward slightly as he encroached further into the cavern mostly looking for an escape route or more information on his whereabouts. Each step he took created a booming echo that caused the small pebbles and the walls to shudder in response.

Each time he passed by a pit of the substance; the man felt such a substantial boost to his own power. This alone piqued his interest as he would have to investigate at another point.

Moments turned into hours as the man continued struggling in the cavern until he stopped dead in his tracks. His body shuddered in response of seeing a giant bone carcass laying dormant in a conveniently placed platform surrounded by the green liquid.

His first response was to steel his nerves as he raised his hand and whispered, “Ignus”. The risen hand ignited a burned blaze that engulfed his hand and illuminated the corpse. That was a mistake as the cadaver of whatever the creature was sputtered to life. Almost by magic the skeleton arranged itself from a hulking creature to a small humanoid, completely devoid of skin and soon was engulfed by green gas. The gas filled in his eye sockets and even draped itself properly over the body like a veil.

Soon enough the gas settled and so did the relic of whatever used to cover the bones of the creature. For what seemed to be an eternity, the corpse and the man stared into each other waiting for one to make a move. Whether that move was hostile, the man was prepared with to burn the undead to cinders.

The man started growing impatient and one could say wary as he felt him self attempting to charge at the corpse and rid himself of this abomination. Tunnel vision was clouding the man’s mind as he reached for the corpse with his flaming hand.

A flame that was able to easily burn metal with ease would have no problem burning bones, and that would be the assumption. However, the corpse reached one hand out and seized the man’s hand and the fire turned black and doused immediately.

The man felt utter dread as he felt the corpse’s brittle hand squeezing the life out his arm and as the light from the flames faltered. The glow from the being’s veil illuminated the surrounding area, the jaw of the creature struggled to open as the man saw the joints attempting to unhinged but creating a horrible grinding noise.

With all his might, the man attempted to tear his arm free from the creature but only caused blood to erupt from the parts of his arm being held by the hand. The grinding noises of the creature tormented the man as he struggled tirelessly to gain freedom.

With swiftness, the noise stopped and so did the death grip on the man. He fell backward onto his behind as he looked straight into the gaping maw of the creature. Gas creeped slowly out of the corpse’s teeth until the man heard it finally speak with a soft voice.

“You have no need to fear me human, unless you wish to make an enemy out of me.”

The man was stunned at the solemn words spoken from an undead body but felt something nagging the back of his mind. He regained his footing and stood across from the corpse and smirked as he knew all too well what was nagging him.

“Who…and what are you?”, the man’s resolve was clear as was his question. His eyes wandered between the corpse’s eyes and orifice opened and closed as if trying to talk fast. The words that followed didn’t match up with the mouth but kept the soft attitude the creature had before.

“I have gone by many names over the lifetime of the universe, but most know me by Lagarius. This form you see me is known as my Walker-form; it is a lot easier to converse with other beings this way.”

The man felt more lost than prior to his questions due to him having no recollection of any Lagarius in any of his books or whatever creature can shift between forms. His hand drifted to his chin as he attempted to decipher the reply, he got from the Lagarius until he heard the being’s jaw motioning to talk again.

“I may not have had the company to rehearse common etiquette, but I know that when someone introduces themselves, the other party should do the same.”

His mind was shocked as the creature was just as interested in him as the latter. A sinister grin appeared on his face as he lowered his hand and placed it in front of him pointing condescendingly at the creature.

“I am Archwizard Viren, of the Void Nexus Mages.”, Viren’s words spat venom at Lagarius and the only thoughts going to his head was how he was far more important than a walking corpse.

With a feeling of accomplishment Viren grinned like an idiot and looked over to the being and fell silent and lost all confidence as the being was no longer there. Viren scanned the room and furiously spun around seeing nothing but an empty cavern. Lagarius disappeared entirely as Viren gave his breathtaking speech and became filled with rage as this creature spoke of courtesy and shows none himself.

In a moment as all rage was about to be let lose, Viren felt rocks and pebbles falling onto him from above, and he felt a deathly chill as he slowly looked up the ceiling.

Viren’s heart fell instantly as he trembled mercilessly at the sight above him. The giant bone pile he saw before was now a giant undead dragon that had green liquid pulsating throughout his body filling up the parts his bones left exposed. The creature uncoiled its neck as it lowered towards the petrified human and stared into Viren’s soul.

The giant head opened, and an unrelenting torrent of powerful air laced with the gas overwhelmed Viren and forced him to dig his hands into the earth to hold on. The once soft voice was replaced by a monstrous one that sent the sight of death down your spine at every word spoken.

“I apologize Archwizard Viren, as I was not forthcoming about revealing my true identity, until you were so gracious to do so.” Viren felt a strange sensation coming from the dragon and stood against it ready to hear what it had to say. “I am Lagarius, Dragon of the Void…or what the other dragons know me by…as The Oblivion Walker!”

The cavern shook with such intensity as the dragon emitted a devasting aura and all the walls shattered into pieces revealing dark green crystals glowing brighter than any sun in response to Lagarius.

Viren watched as this all unfolded around him and simply smiled and allowed his mind to wander, even knowing that if he disobeys, he late kings’ orders…all kingdoms will fall with all this untouched power. Laughs filled the air as Viren let his mind run rampant and even his hands shuddered with magic as his veins turned black leading up to his eyes becoming encased in darkness. 

#### \---Humanity’s mistake is allowing our true monsters to roam free ---

“ELLIS! WHERE ARE YOU?”, Ezran screamed at the top of his lungs in the direction of the dense woods laid out before him. Ezran rubbed the back of his neck as he looked between the trees searching for his fiance knowing all too well that she’s toying with him. She was often the prankster back in their hometown, even if she was the chieftain’s daughter.

Ezran slumped onto the ground sitting to attempt to decipher how to handle the situation as it continued. As much as he enjoyed spending his time keeping Ellis out of trouble, he was more worried about the weird phenomenon that transpired a couple of days ago.

The last thing he could remember was walking alongside Ellis in the woods of his village and came across a strange creature. It was covered in scales and looked almost like a lizard. He had never seen such a creature before and when he attempted to talk with it, he ended up in a strange clearing in a place he’s never seen before.

His eyebrows furrowed as he contemplated his decisions on messing with something, he had no understanding of. This resulted in a mental slap to his head as he chuckled in curiosity to what the creature had to talk about.

Ezran was hailed as a powerful individual in his village as he was able to speak almost directly to nature. The reason it was ‘almost’ was due to him being able to speak to and understand the creatures of the land. His village hailed him as the Beastmaster as he was able to quell any problems the villagers faced against creatures through pacifism.

Ironically enough, it was quite the conundrum to see Ellis and Ezran together as she was to best fighter in the entire village. The chiefs of all the other villagers gave her the name The Huntress of Kula (Kula being the village they belonged to).

Ezran wasn’t one to use his gift to harm others of for petty reasons, but he would call upon the rage of nature if someone he cared about came to harm in a heartbeat. His mother was a seer with great magical power and he assumed that’s why he can easily do such things with ease, but sometimes, he felt like he was given such a power because he had no magic.

His mind wanted nothing more to be able to solve this problem and go back home as he was going to marry Ellis under the ritual of the tribes the same day. Yet his mind was always roaming to other things and that’s what prompted the journey into the forest. Ezran pulled his legs to his chest as he squeezed his arms around them and felt himself becoming sad at the whole development.

That didn’t last too long as he felt a pair of arms wrap around him and throw him onto his back. Ezran gasped as his back hit the ground but was met with the same dark brown eyes he’d stared into for so many moons. Ellis was leaning over the now incapacitated Ezran as she smiled from ear to ear staring into her mate’s eyes.

“Ellis, done playing around? We have to work on finding a place to sleep for the night seeing as we’ve been walking around all day today”, Ezran said calmly as he rose onto his elbows to recover from the sneak attack.

He looked over to Ellis as she looked up to the sky as the sun was starting to set. “Don’t worry Ezran, we’ll get back to Kula, so your mother doesn’t uproot the whole village looking for you.”

Ezran blushed at her teasing him and tried to speak a coherent sentence but just let air escape his lips. “Shut up already, we’ve messed around enough today as is, we need to find shelter until we can understand our circumstances.”

Ellis mock saluted which elected a laugh from both, but Ezran could see her eyes becoming more focused as she looked onward towards the woods, and saw fireflies appearing between the spaces of trees.

They both strolled forward together, advancing towards the woods before them looking for a chance of respite. Their eyes focusing on their surroundings a little too much for a couple of times they brushed up against each other and they snarled at each other in an instant. Each time, this made them laugh because they were from a warrior tribe, but they remembered their pact with each other and moved on.

Ezran's mother always told him, that nature was the same no matter where you went, however, with each step he took, it was on unknown footing. 

#### \---Given such strength, even the lowest of creatures can surpass true monsters---

Snapped awake by such a force that was almost too familiar to Callum, his eyes looking upon a room with no significance besides a staircase leading towards a platform with a box on a pedestal. Callum felt almost ethereal like the time when he first met Rayla but this time he was more in control of his body.

His eyes widened as he came to another realization, he could feel a slight breeze, a very cold breeze hitting his neck from behind and he turned around to see an opening in the distance. As much as he would like to check out the room, he elected to observe the location for its entirety before his time was up as he walked towards the entrance.

The cold air was hitting him much harder now as he came closer, his body was starting to feel so cold as he moved forward to the point, he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore.

Wherever he was, the temperature was not easily inhabitable by humans or anything without thick fur. His thoughts becoming dull as he was greeted by the sunlight but also by a sheer cold that started to stiffen his entire body.

Callum saw a giant mountain pass covered in ice and snow that scaled higher than any mountain he ever saw, and right smack in the middle was a giant dragon sleeping. From what he could see of it, the dragon was easily bigger than most multi-story buildings from Katolis. Its pure white scales almost camouflaged it within the snowbank but the pulsating cyan color between its scales gave it away as a bright light came from it. The dragon didn’t seem to have any wings which piqued Callum’s interest but was interrupted when he took a step forward and heard a snap.

Callum felt pain surging throughout his body as he saw ice starting to cover his body, and it was doing so very quickly. His mind started to panic as he turned back towards the cave to hopefully re-heat himself.

His body wasn’t allowing him to run or even walk an inch forward as he felt his body growing so cold, he couldn’t feel entire limbs anymore. Callum tried to yell for help but couldn’t speak as his mouth couldn’t open and close without hurting.

Callum tried hard to move his leg with so much force that he heard a giant snap and he soon fell face forward into the snow. His mind was scared, and he moved his head so slowly as to see what happened and grew deathly afraid at seeing what had happened. His eyes trembling at his right leg completely severed from his body and encased in ice.

_Help me please…_ this was his only thought as he couldn’t feel anything on his body anymore and wanted this all to end. _What was the point of all of this, why does this keep happening to me?_

His eyes started to see ice creeping around his eye lids, and he used all his might to yell anything…” RAAAYYYYLLLAAAA!!!”

In that instance, he felt his subconscious fade as ice imprisoned his entire body, and he awoke in the small makeshift camp he and Rayla set up a couple days after leaving Silvergroove.

Rayla woke up abruptly and saw Callum hyperventilating and rushed to his side trying to calm him down. He was terrified at the experience he just went through; his mind wanted more than nothing to forget that entire memory.

Callum refocused his mind to Rayla so he could reassure her he was just having a bad dream, but he saw horror in her lavender eyes.

“What’s wrong Rayla?” Callum was trying desperately to get her attention as he even repeated the question.

She just looks at him and asked him a simple question that terrified Callum to his core.

“Why are you freezing to the touch…?”

Callum trembled at the question trying to piece it together as he touched his body and felt heat, but eyes caught onto the problem. It was summer in Xadia, which meant the heat easily could light the trees on fire, yet he had darker tinted skin and he could see his breath as clear as day.

_What was the point in all of that?_ His thought almost became enough for Rayla to hear as they stared at each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for this extremely long hiatus, it was meant to be a week off and turned into a month off and that is unacceptable. 
> 
> That being said, i will now be posting a normal sized chapter every Tuesday, and on Saturday, i will post at least 5000 words to get a more detail and story across in a chapter. My main desire moving forward from here is to spend more time tweaking my chapters and delivering something im super excited with. 
> 
> Speaking of tweaking my chapters, if anyone is interested in beta-ing for my upcoming chapters, feel free to message me on my instagram and ill be able to get this cracking. (@eonrunnerwriter)
> 
> One last thing, thank you to everyone still reading this and even messaging me about getting off of my butt to work on it. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for everything, much love :3


	13. The Hunt Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are getting weird in Xadia, but Callum and Rayla have a grasp on it...right? 
> 
> The journey is going to become more hectic and that's no one's fault, except for maybe one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter isnt 5000 words like i said it would be, but its pretty darn close. 
> 
> That being said i will make sure every other chapter is more than 5000 to keep to my word.

# Chapter 13: The Hunt Begins

#### \---Raindrops hide even the strongest of Bloodlusts---

An uneventful day passed as Rayla and Callum walked through the crooked path of the forest. Their footsteps cautious and precise as a heavy downpour pelted them before their trek began. The rain itself felt magnificent in comparison to the scorching hot summer day they had to deal with up till now. The rain was coming down so hard that the sounds of breathing or even crunching of branches couldn't overpower it.

Rayla felt her skills of observation falling several clicks short as her senses became dull to the onslaught.

With several steps Rayla tried to regain balance as she lost her footing on the mud and proceeded to skid forward until she felt someone wrap a hand around her arm. Disorientated she looked up and saw Callum smiling through his hooded appearance at her.

She smiled back in return as she steadied herself to solid footing. Once she was in a better spot the two exiles continued their journey to who-knows where.

The thoughts of a couple moons ago in Silvergroove still fresh on Rayla’s mind as she abandoned her entire life and dreams for someone, she met only a few weeks ago.

Rayla shook her head as she wanted to clear those thoughts because if anything, she had no regrets in her actions to stick by her friend. Callum was her friend and companion first and foremost…and a crazy magic-wielding lunatic.

A day or so after the initial journey began, Callum was whipping spells out of his sleeve so randomly and quickly that she had a hard time keeping up with it all. Honestly, she lost track at the name of ninety percent of the spells he even used.

He was like a kid getting presents and filled with so much joy that he couldn’t wait to show others. Yet the problem wasn’t that, the problem was that he was giving himself all the presents, so it made it a little too much to deal with.

Rayla sighed as she felt more rain trickling relentlessly down her hood and she started to notice a powerful wind pick up. “Callum! We need to find shelter!” Rayla’s words practically at a yell but muffled immensely in comparison to the rain.

She yelled it repeatedly trying to get louder with each one, but nothing seemed to reach Callum even though he was only a few feet away. It was weird, as nothing seem to faze her companion, not even the rain…

Rayla focused more on Callum’s movement and saw that he was moving more like an automaton and less like a living person. She rushed forward and placed a hand on his shoulder whipping him around to see his face.

The moment the being flipped around, a face with four eyes glared and hissed intimidatingly at her and with a simple movement, Rayla extended her arm behind her and revealed her weapon. She severed the head of the creature and shadows dispersed from the once similar body.

Rayla intuitively knew what this creature was, a tyranshee, a serpent amalgam that can mimic creatures. It uses this tactic to lower the defenses to deliver a powerful venom to instantly kill its prey. Her mind was racing as she looked around for Callum, but her thoughts jumped back to something with the creature.

Normally speaking, the tyranshee wouldn’t have wasted so much time to kill its prey… _so why did it seem so docile even at it was revealed?_

If anything, it seemed like it was following orders or something, like it had a master, but no one has been able to tame such a crafty creature.

Rayla needed to focus on the task at hand and circled around endlessly looking for Callum, yelling as loud as she could. Nothing came from any direction, just rain. She grew impatient and angry at the lack of answers she got but became aware of something in the air.

The moment she stopped whipping around, she noticed small sparks jumping around the air around her. Rayla tried to grasp onto the spark that was dancing frantically until she heard a giant thundercrack and a bright blue light emanating from nearby.

Rayla’s eyes grew determined at the acknowledgement of the lightning as she knew of only one with such power and ran towards the recent power surge hoping to understand what’s going on and when she and Callum even got separated. 

#### \---Eyes of the enemies can tell more than their words ever will---

Rayla ran towards the last place she saw the light and tried her hardest to keep her footing in the rain but fell a couple of times only to recover swiftly using a roll to keep momentum.

She came onto a clearing surrounded by a group of trees and saw that Callum was safe, for now. Rayla noticed two figures standing opposite of him, one being held close by the other and both were wearing strange wooden masks. From what could be surveyed, Callum was able to land a hit on one of them and the other was there to protect.

Rayla started to pick up speed to show up as back up for the fight but stopped dead in her tracks. As much as she wanted to force her body to join Callum, she could only marvel at the powerful magic emanating in this area. Above her head was rain, but not how it normally was, the rain was being slowed almost to a stop but moving. The rain would fall ever so slowly but become magically redirected upward into a giant bubble above them.

Another thing hit her as she saw a creature swimming happily inside the bubble, the creature was something she’s never seen before as it was a giant fish covered in bright green runes of some kind.

Her thoughts snapped her back to reality, _I can’t keep sitting here I need to help Callum!_

Rayla sped up and skidded to a stop next to Callum brandishing both of her blades and eyes narrowed onto the opponents facing her. She could hear a small chuckle come from Callum and this elected a smile but was soon replaced with one with more anger.

Callum spoke to the adversaries, “Alright, now that I have my companion back from whatever dirty trick you tried to pull, we will both be able to walk away from all this.”

Rayla darted her eyes over confusedly but stayed on her guard as the two across from her remained hostile. A young voice roared viciously at them, coming from the one holding the hurt body in his arms.

“You think you can harm someone and simply walk away; I will not allow you to leave with your lives!”

Callum retorted almost immediately allow his arm to become engulfed in a piercing blue lightning. “You are to blame for all of this, you tricked my ally and tried to have her killed!”

Rayla was trying to keep her head on her shoulders as she tried to catch up to speed with the yelling match happening.

“Callum, they want to fight, so be ready, as they will regret messing with you and me!” Rayla chimed in smiling confidently at Callum, he looked at her and smiled in return as he shrugged his shoulders and balled his other fist creating a similar effect on his other arm.

Callum was now facing danger with both arms encased in his lighting. Rayla couldn’t stop herself from admiring the way he can go from friendly face to dangerous monster.

Even with that, she couldn’t allow herself to be in awe as she raised her swords to the sky and shouted a phrase. “MoonRay!”

Her swords started to glow a bright incandescent white and her forearms became practically invisible. Rayla was happy she took the time to learn other spells before she left Silvergroove, especially this one as it allowed her swords to radiate the moon’s power temporarily. Which in turn prompted her body to go invisible as all moonshadow elves can do when exposed to a full moon.

The combatant that was harmed regained her footing and stood almost feral and removed the wooden mask and snarled angrily at Callum. “You will not get another chance to cast your magic fool!”

Rayla and Callum gasped at the person seeing that it was another human. She was smaller than Callum slightly and she had a large brown braid down her shoulder. Aside from her killer expression, she could easily be mistaken as harmless if the circumstances were different.

With an exchange of looks, Callum and Rayla lowered there arms slightly but were interrupted by the girl roaring into a wolf’s howl. This howl was booming as it rattled against Rayla’s eardrums and she noticed that an aura surrounded the girl.

Her body grew an orange tint and as the shape of claws overlapped her hands and her teeth grew insanely sharper. Along with the change in her appearance two giant wolves appeared by her side with the same orange color but more detailed in their appearance.

Rayla marveled at such a development, whoever these humans were, they possessed immense magical power just like Callum. She readied herself again as she saw Callum take a few paces forward and attempted to talk with the two humans.

“Listen, we were both at fault, but there is no reason to continue this fighting as all of us are just trying to survive.” Callum’s words filled with sincerity but fell on deaf ears when it came to the female, but Rayla could see a smile coming from the young male.

The young girl charged forward at insane speed ignoring the plea of peace and appeared instantly in front of Callum and delivered a punch to his stomach. The impact created a loud crack and as Callum lurked forward, he coughed up gallons of blood.

Rayla sped forward to Callum and in return swiped insanely quick at the girl, and with such precision that with every dodge that the girl attempted, Rayla was able to land hits before the assailant was in a new position.

Callum recovered and clapped his hands together and voiced a new spell. “Leviathan’s Flail” 

He parted his hands and a living bolt of lightning sputtered to life and wrapped around his arms like a snake. Callum slammed his arms downward making the lighting dig into the earth removing chunks of ground and leaving scorched magma in its wake.

The girl jumped back far away from Rayla and the two wolves swapped places with her and lunged at Rayla baring orange teeth. The swap between human and creatures happened too suddenly as Rayla was caught off guard and the wolves got insanely close to tearing her body to ribbons.

As much as Rayla wanted to jump out of the way she was left to take the damage coming her way. That was until she saw two bolts of lighting wrap around the necks of the wolves and yanked them into the air and slammed them into the ground. The impact shook the ground and sent a bolt of lighting upwards to the sky and all could be heard was the whimpering of wolves and thunder.

“Thanks Callum, I owe you one!”, Rayla recovered herself and stood ready to fight again and saw that her friend gave an approving nod.

The three stood against each other mercilessly ready to tear the other’s throats out but as they tried to resume fighting, they were hit with a giant amount of water. Rayla was knocked down onto the ground from the pressure of the water and was sprawled on the ground.

It was only a few moments until the water gave way and Rayla stood up to stare at the clearing now covered in water and Callum laying on his back with feet in the sky against a nearby tree. 

The girl was being helped up by the young man, and she was barely able to keep her balance, as she was no longer covered by the aura.

Rayla stood up and walked over to Callum and helped him up and was startled by the giant fish that was once suspending the water above now slowly circling the man.

The young man raised his sleeve and the fish became far smaller than it once was until it proceeded to dive into the man’s arm. The fish had a green hue before it became a tattoo and a sleeve covered it.

Now with Rayla and Callum recovered they kept their distance but keener on watching what the man would do next. That was short lived as the man spoke with a childish demeanor.

“Sorry to break up the party, but I thought you all needed to COOL OFF!”

Rayla slapped a hand to her head as she just heard such a terrible joke come from someone that was trying to kill her. As disappointed as she was, Callum was cracking up and laughing to the point he coughed up blood and held his stomach in pain as he fell to his knees.

“Callum!”, Rayla reached her arm under Callum's arm to give him some help on standing straight. She was too worried to help her injured friend to realize that the young man walked up casually to her and began to talk.

“Sorry for all the problems caused here, honestly, I was glad to see you both want to handle this peacefully. As much as it pains me to say that I’m ok with what happened, I am. Regardless of you almost hitting my fiancé, no real harm was done, and we are all standing here and can laugh.”

Rayla stared at the man just smiling with a giant grin and held out his hand wanting to be properly introduced.

So Rayla indulged him, “I’m Rayla Seraphim and this is Callum Dragonai”

She gestured harmlessly at Callum as he waved his hand before deciding to fall to the ground to lay on his back.

“I’m Ezran and this is my fiancé Ellis. We don’t have two names like you both, but we do have nicknames that were given to us by our tribes. I am called the Beastmaster and Ellis is the Huntress.”

Rayla was dumfounded at how casually these humans were talking to her despite what happened not even five minutes ago. She looked past Ezran and saw Ellis playing with her braid almost as if she had a nervous tick.

Ezran noticed almost immediately and placed his hands on her shoulders and shoved her forward in front of Rayla to talk.

“Honestly, you saw a side of Ellis that most don’t see Rayla, if she isn’t trying to fight, she is a nervous mess around new people.” Ezran laughed as Ellis blushed and turned around a nailed Ezran with a hard punch to his arm. He yelped in pain but laughed in retaliation, soon enough Ezran walked over to Callum and crouched over him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen magic like yours Callum, I’ve seen all kinds in my lifetime, but what I saw was almost not-magic.”

Rayla grew perplexed at that observation but could honestly agree, magic had a certain prerequisite to be casted or it had a specific interaction, but Callum’s magic was something entirely different.

As much as Rayla would’ve liked to be spared from the talk of magic between Callum and Ezran she was lucky seeing Callum unconscious from the fight.

Rayla herself wanted to excuse her and Callum from these two…individuals, but that was wishful thinking as Ezran beat her too the punch of filling in the silence.

“So Rayla, I know this is sudden, but I feel that having a bigger party would ensure that our success in anything is increased. Of course, I’m sure we all have our own goals, but having help is a great thing.”

Honestly, he was right, but Rayla wouldn’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Callum and I are ok on our own, I appreciate the offer though.” Rayla said it confidently as she turned around and started to walk away from Ezran and Ellis with pride in doing what she said.

That was until Ezran coughed too loudly to be real, and as Rayla turned around she saw him motion to the unconscious Callum nearby that she was about to leave.

She rubbed her neck nervously as she retreated to the group and kneeled over Callum to make sure he was alright. Rayla was trying her hardest to ignore the awkwardness but soon bit her lip at realizing that she didn’t bring any LunarHearts with her for healing.

She mentally punched herself because she had a gigantic surplus of flowers from Callum’s overuse of magic, and she didn’t pack any for the journey.

Footsteps filled the air as Ezran kneeled next to Rayla looking smug as hell waiting for her to acknowledge him. As hard as it was to ignore Ezran being smug next to her, Ellis kneeled on Rayla’s opposite side and mimicked Ezran.

Rayla sighed as she looked over to Ezran and he lifted his sleeve up revealing a plethora of different tattoos of animals she had never seen and ran his fingers along a certain one. The tattoo shined a red color and a lizard creature with eight limbs crawled to life.

Ezran held the lizard by its tail and jerked the creature till the tail came off. The lizard wiggled in pain as it retreated into Ezran’s arm becoming a black tattoo again.

He held the tail in his hand and the tail turned into a palm-full of tiny lizards and he placed them on Callum’s stomach. Rayla was surprised as the tiny lizards started entering his stomach the same way the bigger one did with Ezran’s tattoo. The small ones instantly disappeared and Rayla looked just as confused as she did at the beginning of the interaction.

Ezran spoke up as he shifted to sitting down leaning on his arms. “They are called Cataylstwyrms, in my village, the lizards grant us healing balms and spells in return that we protect them from predators.”

Rayla was surprised at such a healing technique before her curiosity got the better of her. “Ezran, why did you take off its tail then?”

Ezran looked over to Rayla and smiled, “Seeing as Ellis most likely broke every rib in his body, I decided that many smaller wyrms would able to mend his body easier than a giant one.” His body shifted more to accommodate his position on the ground and allow himself to relax. “Wanna rethink about the group thing, it helps having a healer and someone capable of watching for danger?”

Rayla slapped her head as she gave in to the suggestion but take a second to realize what he said. “What do you mean someone watching for danger?”

Ellis chimed in and howled again but a lot more controlled and less deafening. “When I use this form, I become a powerful lycanthrope and my sense become insanely better, hence why I’m called the huntress.” The three decided to talk and just explain their situations. 

Quite some time passed as the three chatted about things they’ve seen and Rayla even took the time to fill them in on where they were. The same kind of treatment she gave Callum but a lot more refined and less prone to drag on.

Ezran even told Rayla that he got his name the Beastmaster because of his ability to talk with animals, his tattoo on his arms are the spiritual essence of those creatures that accepted a pact with him. So, he can summon them in a battle or whatever his desire for bringing them into the world.

Rayla got a little worried about the tyranshee and she even brought it up to Ezran but oddly enough, Ezran had no idea what she was talking about.

As the night was growing closer and a temporary campfire was made around the still unconscious Callum, Ezran voiced his worries.

“Rayla listen, when we came here, Ellis and I came across a strange stone village a few days away from here. The fact of a village would’ve been enough to make us happy, however, Ellis sensed darkness from there.

Rayla’s mind thought about it, and she came to the realization that they were referencing the Elven village Versax. It was a ritualistic village of all kinds of elves that followed old elven teaching about the afterlife. The village was full of eccentric priests but harmless and often avoided as it was more of a recruitment town than anything.

Ezran snapped Rayla back as he talked more, “the scent of death is overbearing there, honestly, I was hoping to get some clarification from you if I could.”

Rayla simply told him the purpose of the town butcould see him growing more unsure of the explanation and that was unsettling for him and Ellis, so she made a quick decision.

“Listen, seeing as we need to stock up on supplies, we will head there, and I will be able to stop any fears you both have of the place. I promise.”

Rayla gave a sincere smile towards the two humans as they looked back towards each other and nodded and smiled.

Honestly, the biggest worry was the strange experience she had with the tyranshee, why was it acting so weird, it was walking cautious almost worried about something else.

All three were simply caught up in their own thoughts of the upcoming days and moments prior to their meeting. All worry dropped when Callum abruptly woke up and clutched his stomach in pain. The rest of the party busted out in laughter as Callum begged them to stop laughing at them.

#### \---Heart of a Dragon and the heart of a human---

The sky was filled with prismatic clouds and young dragons flying around without a care in the world. Days drifted by in a peaceful world, but nothing lasted as war was needed for life’s progression.

Solarius the Dragon of the Sun is the dragon closely attuned to the sun arcanum. He was the first dragon attuned with the arcanum. He is a behemoth of a dragon with red scales imbued with molten magma, and overwhelming yellow eyes following the intensity of the sun itself.

It was Solarius’ job to protect the livelihood of dragons and ensure safety to all who follow the sun.

It has been many centuries since war has plagued the lands of Xadia and even longer since he fought against his brother.

In the ancient times of Xadia, his twin brother Lagarius was using his powers of death to plague the land. Out of retaliation this fight lasted a millennium and ended with scorched earth and decaying dragons.

Life took many centuries to recover but happened successfully with the help of other dragons of the arcanum, and life prospered until the human uprising several centuries later.

His eyes peered out onto the skies he watched over and sighed mentally wishing to shake up the monotony of his existence. Solarius coiled his head around to the giant golden nest made for him by the followers of the sun. He watched as dragonlings played joyously and tumbled over themselves.

Purely out of boredom he released some air from his nostrils, and this blew away the dragonlings and knocked them several yards away. With a grin he returned to his lesser mood and laid his head onto his legs closing his eyes to sleep becoming unconscious on the spot.

“Master Solarius! Solarius! HEY, YOU BIG DUMB LIZARD!”

Solarius opened his eyes as he focused onto a spectral being standing before him, “What do you want Lex?”

Lex the ghost was pouting as he turned away from the dragon, “did you honestly forget what task you had me do?”

Solarius was still half-asleep and honestly couldn’t care to indulge this spirit but tried his hardest to remember. His eyes jolted to the realization, and he stood up and shook the very nest to its core, Lex was undeterred seeing as he is floating.

“My apologies dear friend, I forgot I sent you to watch over the young human. What news have you for me?”

Lex shook his head and filled Solarius in one the last visits he had with Callum.

“After that I haven’t been able to contact him, he’s been improving at an exponential rate and I fear he’s getting visions without me to protect him.”

Solarius took a moment to gather in the details that he received and grew disturbed at the idea of Callum seeing visions on his own without Lex's protection.

Beings who are born with an affinity for magic are born with the ability to see visions. These visions are given to those to allow deeper connections with the arcanum they are strongest with.

Protective entities are assigned to these individuals to protect them during visions, because if harm is to come to them, then their affinity can be severed temporarily or permanently.

Lex floated closer to Solarius to playful whisper in his ears, but it didn’t matter seeing as the dragonlings couldn’t understand any language yet.

“Listen, I know you have some grand plan to revive humanity or something in Xadia but why did you bring in more humans?”

Solarius glared at Lex, it’s true that he brought Callum to Xadia for selfish reasons, but he was the only human brought.

“You are mistaken ghost, there is only one human, there are not many who can summon beings from other worlds.”

Lex shrugged his shoulders and phased into the dragon and he saw all the fight between; Callum, Rayla, Ezran and Ellis.

With a simply shake of his head, Lex was hurled out onto the ground and he disappeared.

Solarius was truly worried about this, seeing that other humans were brought forward could throw a fireball into the mix and ruin everything. With a raise and lowering of his tail a giant shockwave was sent around him and soon dragons landed in front of him.

Three dragons bowed their head respectively and awaited the command from the powerful being.

“Each of you will head to the other dragons of the arcanum, tell them I wish to hold council in the Abyss of Ash and do it with haste!”

With the final word leaving his lips the dragons flapped their wings furiously and left to complete their task.

Solarius looked back onto the sky littered with dragons, and sighed as he started to regret the decision, he made to bring a human to Xadia…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading my story and leaving such amazing feedback.
> 
> Also holy crap, this story is at 110 Kudos!!!!
> 
> I CRI !!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Thank you all sooo much!


	14. City of Nightmares and Knights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The city of Versax is in the group's sights, and as well as someone else. 
> 
> This journey is getting weirder and weirder , Callum will be tested in more ways than one.

# Chapter 14: City of Nightmares and Knights

#### \---Our destiny is to reach for the stars by any means necessary---

Lagarius was completely devoid of interactions now for Viren, but in all honesty, the creature was taking time to shapeshift into many different forms. All kinds of things that Viren felt awe wash over him and even some that made him shudder in disgust.

The dragon was able to shift into a human with some practice, mostly with each attempt prior to the last having less and less bones showing. Viren knew some spells to cloak his appearance but those were close to a veil while Lagarius could become a complete copy.

Viren had spent some odd number of days inside this cavern in who knows where, but his mind was being actively entertained for the time being. He often spent some time exploring the caverns and came up empty on any resemblance of an exit.

After his repeated day of failure, he decided to confront the dragon and see if there was some possible way of escape.

“Lagarius, I know you’re busy doing…whatever it is you’re doing, however I wanted to ask about seeing some sunlight even for a moment?”

The dragon stopped its ritual of transformation and quickly turned into a human and faced Viren. The conversation would’ve been easier to handle for Viren, except for the fact that Lagarius mastered the form but failed in making clothes appear along with him.

Lagarius said nothing, just simply staring at the mage across from him and held his hand out. Viren simply stared at an empty hand in disbelief but soon realized that a prismatic color was emanating from the empty palm. Cracks appeared quickly enveloping his hand and a blinding light was illuminating the cave.

Viren shielding his eyes from the event but felt a hand grab his face and he heard a voice from behind the light.

“You will need to see this Viren, if you wish to leave this cave.”

Viren heard those cryptic words leave the false mouth of his ally and he stared into the light feeling it burn his retinas. His eyes watered immensely at the sight and not even blinking saved him from the light.

For what seemed like centuries, the light faded and Viren collapsed onto the ground heaving and gasping while an afterimage was in his vision.

“What in the…HELL…was that!!”

Viren could hear footsteps against a stone floor as Lagarius walked up to him and kneeled readying himself to whisper to the harmed mage on the ground.

“Focus on the light Mage of the Void, through the light, you’ll escape the darkness. Do not forget the embrace of darkness however, for the light can also trick you.”

Viren felt confused at what he was being told but felt a hand against his back and heard the dragon whispering a phrase to him. _Astaria_ , the moment those words racked against Viren’s head he understood that it was an incantation and repeated the words immediately.

At that instant, his hand cracked and revealed the same light he was shown before but this time the light wasn’t blinding but instead dim. The radiance itself was failing but Viren could see different colors within it.

The closer he looked, Viren could see that this spell was some sort of teleportation and he could see a village within his palm. With a smile he tried to focus on the light and noticed his body becoming lighter.

He was happy at the chance of leaving this cave to gather information on such a monster next to him and be prepared in case he needed to kill him.

Suddenly, a bone claw appeared from the earth and impaled Viren’s arm and leg sending searing pain throughout his body.

Lagarius spoke ever so softly again but raising it to a roar against Viren, “I told you, DO NOT LET THE LIGHT TRICK YOU!” The claw retreated into the ground releasing Viren but not unharmed and as Viren struggled to recover from the attack, Lagarius muttered something as he returned to his shifting activity.

“Do come back soon, we have many things to discuss before I return to the world of light.”

Viren was aching from the wounds in his body but nodded obediently and repeated the spell and quickly left, for the village he saw in his spell.

#### \---Control your emotions or they will destroy you---

Callum had to take some time to catch up on what happened between the group while he was unconscious. Luckily Ezran seemed to be kind enough to help him while Rayla was focused on something else entirely.

The group decided to head to a town Rayla called Versax to restock on supplies and calm some problems between the other two humans in the group.

Honestly, the fact Callum found more humans was insanity itself but made him happy, nevertheless.

The trek wasn’t too bad seeing as a monsoon wasn’t tormenting them this time around. The group was minding their own business as they walked to the town, from what Callum could surmise, they still didn’t feel entirely calm around each other and that made sense. Seeing as they were ready to fight to the death not even a day ago.

Callum looked around and saw that Rayla was completely out of the loop and he decided to walk over to her.

Callum nudged her arm and watched as color returned to Rayla’s eyes and they both stared at each other.

“Everything ok Rayla, I’m worried that something is keeping you from focusing on the task at hand?”

He could see her shake her head slightly, and she gave him a false smile, one filled with lies but trying to be real.

As Rayla tried to return to the group, Callum grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him as he embraced her in a hug.

“You’re always there for me Rayla, so just know that I’m here for you whenever you need it, for whatever reason…ok?”

An actual smile crept onto her face as her face softened up and she returned a hug, and said, “I know Callum and if something is bothering me, I’ll come straight to you.”

The two quickly returned to the group and noticed Ezran and Ellis standing still, staring at something in the distance.

Callum joined them and saw a decent sized village obviously smaller than Silvergrove but bustling with elves even from a distance.

The three humans stared at the town with almost a strange hesitation wanting nothing to do with the place.

That was until Rayla strolled up and motioned them to join her as she strolled nonchalantly toward Versax.

Callum was trying to catch up to Rayla until he felt Ezran grab his shirt and yanked him backwards. “Callum, be on your guard, Rayla may be able to trust this place, but it reeks of death and corruption.”

His mind felt something off about Versax and with what Ezran told him, his suspicions intensified tenfold.

The group ended up walking to the gate of the village and instantly received cautious glares from the inhabitants. Callum was covering his face with his hoodie and Ezran and Ellis had their wooden masks on that screamed psychopaths, but nothing could be done for them now.

The village of Versax was filled with strange looking buildings, almost human in comparison to Silvergrove, and every elf residing within it were walking with their heads down or praying to the surplus of shrines littering the area.

Callum couldn’t calm his nerves as all kinds of elves stared daggers at him for being an outsider, but Rayla seemed ok as she was strolling around nodding to every elf who walked by her.

The group reached the town center and Rayla turned around to face everyone before speaking.

“Ezran and Ellis, come with me, while I shop for supplies I want you two to take mental notes on the herbs used in medicines so we can skip out on having to stock up from here on out.” Ellis and Ezran nodded in agreement seeing as their skills as hunter-gatherers would be put to good use before Rayla chimed in to talk to Callum.

He was ready to hear his super-cool mission that could be anything in his mind; like being ready to fight off an angry mob or be backup in case shit hits the fan.

With eyes full of excitement, he awaited his instructions, “Callum, stay right here, if any elf tries to talk to you, just ignore them.”

Rayla motioned to Callum by saying she's watching him and as she turned away his eyes fell and sighed as he nodded and watched the other three head into a shop nearby.

##### Some amount of time passed....

Callum was simply bored out of his mind waiting for his friends to return and did as Rayla said, avoiding contact with others as they tried to recruit him to some weird religion.

His mind was trying to find something to do, if he was back home he would’ve simply just gotten out his notebook and sketched something to pass the time and honestly, he missed being able to draw this new world he was in.

Perhaps he could persuade Rayla into getting him an empty book so he can scribble into when he had free time…like now.

Sadly, more and more time passed as Callum sat idly by on the fountain in the middle to the square. It was weird seeing such a gloomy town in comparison to Silvergrove, but something felt super off about this town.

Callum felt something about this town that he couldn’t put his finger on till he looked up and saw a hooded figure looking over his shoulder repeatedly and holding something inside of their cloak before disappearing into an alleyway.

His mind was piqued as he saw such a shady figure and elected to chase after him. Callum ran towards the alleyway and slowed down before he rounded the corner as to not spook the person that came this way.

Callum reared his head slowly around the corner of the alley and saw the hooded figure standing over another person and could hear snapping sounds. He slowly approached the person and as he got closer the snapping noise became louder and the sound of something splattering on the ground could be heard.

As Callum walked closer he felt his eyes widened and he covered his nose as the scent of death penetrated his nose and he stumbled onto the nearby wall and knocked over some wood, creating a loud noise that alerted the figure.

The figure turned around and whistled to the strange creature that was devouring the corpse of an elf . It soon retreated to its owner's clothes and the figure started to back away slowly.

Callum felt his stomach churning at the sight of an elf being devoured like it was nothing and grew angry and elected to invoke his lightning.

The figure saw this and bolted in the other direction, and Callum gave chase, if anything was going to happened, he knew that this monster needed to be stopped.

The figure was fast, and he darted through the streets of the town and gave little care to the elves passing by as he shoved them out of his way. The quicker Callum tried to get, the faster the figure got and the more likely he’d escape.

Callum was keeping on his trail and would not lose sight of this person and soon noticed that the figure slowed down as he reached a couple of building grouped up making a dead end.

“It’s over now murderer, you don’t even deserve the chance to be judged by your peers. I’ll pass quick judgement and make sure you receive it.”

The hooded figure turned slowly around and started laughing menacingly before speaking with a booming voice.

“My life is not yours to judge boy, and you’ll soon understand why!”

The figure raised his hands above him and the sky above started to become dark and a green light appeared throughout their body and with a simple word a booming crash erupted around Callum.

Callum couldn’t hear the word used but the ground erupted with green flames and the buildings that were once cornering the figure fell apart and even dispersed and scattered around the location. The sky was swirling menacingly as the green flames spread to the buildings. The flames were so unique that they didn’t simply ignite the buildings but combusted and spread quickly to nearby homes.

Callum was stumbling to stay upright as what felt like an earthquake was shaking only the area around the village. His eyes moved toward the surrounding areas and saw that the village was getting lowered into the ground. Whatever spell went off, it started terraforming the earth and people would be hurt far more than the devouring witnessed earlier.

He snapped out of his thoughts and focused onto the figure who was holding the strange creature again but this time it could be made out to a strange centipede covered in blood and purple runes.

The figure spoke up as he raised his other hand and a strange black orb appeared and a pure black gas fell onto the ground.

“This Corpsetender will handle your heroic complex and this will be farewell forever!!!”

The figure dropped the centipede and it burrowed into the ground and the shadow orb in his hand soon had the gas encase him and he disappeared.

The ground continued shaking under the pressure of the spell and the green flames continued to erupt.

Suddenly, the ground stopped shaking and even the flames died off without a moments notice. Callum stared around him and even noticed the sky returning to normal.

_What the fuck just happened?_ His thoughts almost slipping out before he felt the earth tremor once more.

The spot where the figure once stood started to rise as the stone became a pyramid of cracked stone.

Callum stood on guard as he prepared for a fight only to see a bone giant rise from the rubble and he could see the once small centipede become the living host inside all of the bones of what could guessed as the elves buried beneath the town.

The creature readied itself as it faced off against Callum gyrating its joints and allowing the hundred-legged creature to scurry about inside the cadaver.

Callum had seen enough scary shit in Xadia to put this monster to shame, so without a further moment his arms erupted with lightning and his eyes seared with energy ready to fight.

#### \---A capable knight is a dependable knight---

Callum looked at this creature with such determination to finish it now and prevent it from harming anyone else.

Before he could mutter a spell in his collection of ways to deal with monsters a loud laugh from nearby caught his attention.

“HAHAHAHAAA DO NOT WORRY DEAR CITIZEN! I SOREN THE STRONGEST KNIGHT OF THE HOLY BRIGADE WILL SLAY THIS BEAST!”

Callum saw a man donning full metal armor with white and gold accents and a decently polished sword trying to run down the hill that held the fight. Callum felt his eyes sparkle at the fact of seeing an actual knight from a fantasy book and lost track of the fight completely.

That was until he saw Soren lose his footing on the hill careening and falling like something out of a cartoon. As every slap Soren’s body made with the ground Callum’s excitement and credibility, he gave the knight diminished.

The knight was taking a ridiculously long time to reach the bottom, and all could be heard was 'ouch’ and ‘oof’.

If Callum wasn’t about to fight for his life, he’d get a good laugh out of all this.

Eventually, Soren hit the bottom of the hill and he laid motionless with his cape laying over his head.

Callum wanted nothing more than to ignore the knight’s condition and fight on but out of the kindness of his own heart he prepared himself.

“Are you ok, knight Soren?”

As soon as those words left his mouth, Soren leaped onto his feet and started swinging his sword around his body. “Worry not citizen, it’ll take more than a devil hill to defeat me!”

“What about that?”, Callum said as he motioned to the Bone creature cautiously waiting across from him.

Soren looked over to the creature and laughed as he readied his sword.

“Worry not, I have fought worse than bone monsters…with creepy crawly bugs…”

Callum noticed how he finished his sentence and ignored it as he stood ready to fight.

Soren looked over to Callum and grinned greatly at him and readied his sword. Honestly, this whole development was giving Callum a headache and he wanted to pretend he never left the fountain…. _” oh shit I left the fountain.”_

Callum shuddered at the thought of seeing how Rayla would deal with him after disobeying her instructions…again.

Soren screamed to Callum as he charged at the monster, “I will weaken the monster, so be ready sir mage as you will deliver the final blow!”

Callum could agree with that as he saw Soren dipping and weaving the slow and clunky movements of the monster almost like he’s done it before.

In a moment, Soren was able to get behind the creature and leap into the air stabbing his sword into the insect and he shouted a phrase for an incantation.

_Holy Smite_ , with those words a blinding light enveloped the creature and the giant staggered onto its arms and Soren removed his sword and motioned for Callum.

Seeing how quickly Soren dealt with the monster made him look so cool, regardless of the initial introduction he was met with.

It was almost as natural as breathing, Callum felt his body surging with energy and in his mind, he brought an old friend to the fight, _Lightning Javelin._

His hand sparked a long lightning bolt and he hurled it towards the downed creature and just like before it caused a powerful shockwave that destroyed the creature and left only dust.

The shockwave was strong enough this time as it stirred up an enormous amount of dirt cloaking everything in mud and soot along with sparks of electricity.

Callum stood strong against the push of the spell knowing well that he remembered his mental note the last time he used it. Callum powered down and just stood still in the cloud of electrified dirty air surrounding him.

“That was incredible sir mage, I would love to have you teach me such an incantation!”

Callum saw Soren completely covered in dirt still smiling at him like an idiot and painfully slapping Callum on his back to show his appreciation.

Soren was indiscriminatingly talking to Callum, but it went in and out of his ears as he dreaded the moment, he would be found by Rayla…and must deal with her disappointed look.

“I’m dead…” Callum said as he fell backwards onto his butt and lowered his head in defeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It just occured to me, that i have been calling SilverGrove...Silver GROOVE and im deeply ashamed lol.
> 
> Thank you all for such the kind comments and i hope you enjoy this chapter.
> 
> And I know this is going to be messed up, but I'm going to be skipping some days of posting because my depression is unrelenting ...
> 
> If anything, I dont want to post half ass chapters that im not happy with ...sorry for the inconvenience


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